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THE 


RESULTS    OF    EMANCIPATION. 


BY 


AUGUSTIN    COCHIN, 

EX-MATRE   AND   MUNICIPAL   COUNCILLOR   OF   PARIS. 


WORK    CROWNED    BY    THE    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE 
(ACADEMIE    FRANCAISE}. 


TRANSLATED    BY 

MARY    L.    BOOTH, 

TRANSLATOR   OF   COUNT   DE   GASPARIN's   WORKS   ON    AMERICA,    ETC. 


BOSTON: 
WALKER,   WISE,    AND    COMPANY, 

245    WASHINGTON   STREET. 
1863. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  18G2,  by 

WALKER,    WISE,    AND     COMPANY, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

WELCH,    DIGEI.OW,    AND    COMPANY, 
P  K  i  x  T  K  R  s . 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 


THE  stranger,  visiting  Paris  and  admiring  its  monu 
ments  of  art,  turns  aside  to  examine  its  more  noble  monu 
ments  of  public  charity.  He  visits  the  Hotel-Dieu,  found 
ed  by  an  Archbishop  of  Paris,  endowed  by  Philip  Augus 
tus  and  St.  Louis,  enlarged  by  Henri  IV.,  and  enriched 
by  the  benefactions  of  a  long  line  of  monarchs.  He  then, 
in  the  Faubourg-Saint-Jacques,  visits  another  hospital, 
more  airy,  neater,  more  commodious,  and  better  ordered, 
with  a  smaller  proportional  mortality  than  the  H6tel- 
Dieu,  giving  annual  relief  to  more  than  2,000  patients, 
founded  during  the  last  century  by  a  single  man,  whose 
name  it  still  bears,  the  Hospital-Cochin.*  Its  founder,  the 
Curate  of  Saint- Jacques-du-Haut-Pas,  was  one  of  a  family 
distinguished  for  its  services  in  the  French  magistracy,  for 
its  administrative  ability,  and  for  its  beneficence.  Two 
generations  later  a  member  of  the  same  family,  Augustin 
Cochin,  produces  a  work  which,  in  far-reaching  conse- 

*  This  hospital  was  commenced  in  1780  and  finished  in  1782,  in  the  Rue  du 
Faubourg-Saint-Jacques,  by  the  venerable  M.  Cochin,  Cure"  of  Saint-Jacques- 
du-Haut-Pas,  who,  to  rescue  his  poor  parishioners  from  the  dangers  to  which 
they  were  exposed  at  the  Hotel-Dieu,  over-crowded,  ill-ventilated,  and  malari 
ous,  where  5,000  patients  were  huddled  together  in  1,400  beds,  disposed  of  all 
his  property,  and  even  his  books,  to  furnish  them  a  safer  and  more  comfortable 
asylum.  It  was  first  called  the  Hopital  de  Saint  Jacques-du-Haut-Pas;  the 
name  of  its  founder  has  since  been  appropriately  bestowed  on  it  by  the  Constil 
des  Hospices,  who  have  placefl  his  marble  bust  in  the  principal  hall.  The  hospi 
tal  contains  some  150  beds,  and  is  under  the  supervision  of  the  Sisters  of  St. 
Martha. 


iv  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

quences,  generous  purpose,  and  practical  utility,  stands 
in  noble  rivalry  with  the  earlier  labors  of  his  progenitors. 

The  possessor  of  an  ample  fortune,  independent, 
frank,  averse  to  intrigue,  and  unpretending  withal,  M. 
Cochin  has  persistently  held  aloof  from  all  office,  only 
accepting  a  municipal  councillorship  and  the  mairie  of 
one  of  the  arrondissements  of  Paris,  a  position  furnishing 
him  an  opportunity  to  do  much  good  in  an  unostenta 
tious  way  as  almoner  to  its  needy  population.  From  his 
earliest  youth  M.  Cochin  has  been  identified  with  the 
cause  of  liberty  in  France.  A  Legitimist  in  principle, 
the  fast  friend  and  ally  of  Count  de  Montalembert  in  his 
efforts  to  raise  up  a  Catholic  liberal  party  for  the  devel 
opment  of  republican  sentiments  and  institutions,  the 
ardent  coadjutor  of  Pere  Lacordaire,  Monseigneur  d'Or- 
leans,  Viscount  de  Melun,  Prince  de  Broglie,  and  a  host 
of  other  reformers,  he  has  long  been  distinguished  for  his 
efforts  and  zeal  in  behalf  of  freedom.  He  is  well  known 
as  a  publicist,  has  been  for  years  an  able  contributor  to 
the  Journal  des  Debats,  one  of  the  most  enlightened  and 
influential  journals  in  Europe,  where  his  articles  on 
American  affairs  have  lately  attracted  much  attention, 
and  is  at  present  editor-in-chief  of  La  Correspondance, 
the  organ  of  the  party  represented  by  Count  de  Monta 
lembert,  Monseigneur  d'Orleans,  and  Prince  de  Broglie, 
in  opposition  to  Louis  Veuillot  and  the  Napoleonic  party. 

M.  Cochin  is  now  in  the  prime  of  life,  —  scarcely  forty 
years  old.  His  wife  is  the  daughter  of  the  well-known 
Legitimist,  Viscount  Benoist  d'Azy,  one  of  the  most  clear 
sighted  and  practical  men  of  France,  who,  possessed  of 
immense  fortune,  an  extensive  land-owner  and  proprietor 
of  iron-forges,  has  done  more  perhaps  than  any  other 
man  to  advance  the  material  interests  of  his  country, 
by  railway  building,  mining,  and  agricultural  improve- 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE.  V 

ments.  M.  Cochin  is  himself  an  eminently  practical 
man,  with  rare  administrative  ability,  and  his  work, 
which  is  here  offered  to  the  public,  is  no  enthusiastic  the 
ory  based  on  mere  visionary  speculation,  but  an  array 
of  clear  and  well-digested  facts,  presented  in  a  calm,  un 
prejudiced  manner,  and  drawn  from  official  sources  to 
which  few  men  could  have  had  so  full  access,  and 
which  few  men  would  have  studied  so  diligently  and 
minutely.  Indeed,  the  published  and  unpublished  pa 
pers  and  records  of  every  ministry  of  Europe  have  been 
placed  at  his  disposal  during  the  preparation  of  his  work; 
in  England  he  has  had  all  the  unpublished  documents  of 
the  Board  .of  Trade,  and  the  sagacious  Nassau  Senior, 
one  of  the  wisest  counsellors  of  the  British  government, 
has  rendered  him  constant  aid.  The  reliability  of  his  facts 
and  conclusions  cannot,  therefore,  be  contested,  and  in 
this  respect  the  work  is  of  the  utmost  value  to  the  Amer 
ican  public,  as  there  is  no  work  extant  in  the  English 
language  which  sums  up  so  fully  and  incontestably  the 
practical  results  of  emancipation. 

The  present  volume  comprises  the  first  volume  of  the 
original  work,  IS  Abolition  de  Vesclavaffe,  and  is  wholly 
distinct  from  the  second  volume,  the  Results  of  Slavery. 
It  has  been  thought  advisable,  having  the  author's  con 
sent,  to  publish  this  volume  separately,  trusting  that 
the  public  demand  may  justify  us  erelong  in  issuing 
the  second,  the  greater  part  of  which  is  devoted  to  the 
United  States  and  its  present  condition.  M.  Cochin  is  a 
warm  advocate  of  the  cause  of  the  North,  and  of  emanci 
pation.  In  a  recent  letter  he  writes :  "  With  what  anx 
ious  and  sympathizing  emotion  we  follow  the  painful 
trials  which  the  United  States  are  enduring !  European 
opinion  has  great  need  of  being  sustained.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  material  interests  which  are  suffering,  on  the 


Vi  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

other,  the  passion  of  the  English  journals,  delighted  with 
the  misfortunes  of  so  powerful  a  rival,  and  through  which 
alone  your  news  reaches  Europe, — these  are  the  two 
causes  which  stifle  the  voices  of  the  friends  of  justice  and 
human  liberty.  I  thank  God  for  having  permitted  me 
opportunely  to  take  a  humble  part  in  this  great  cause.  I 
firmly  hope  that,  whatever  may  be  the  issue  of  the  war, 
slavery  will  be  dishonored  and  stricken  down ;  —  this 
would  be  the  most  glorious  crown  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  ;  it  deserves  the  warmest  efforts.  Count  on  my  per 
severance  in  acting  within  the  narrow  limits  that  I  can, 
and  on  my  gratitude  to  the  unknown  but  much  loved 
friends  who  do  my  work  more  honor  than  I  had  hoped 
for  it." 

The  estimation  in  which  this  work  is  held  in  Europe 
may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  French  Academy, 
at  its  last  annual  meeting,  July  3,  1862,  on  the  report  of 
its  illustrious  Perpetual  Secretary,  M.  Yillemain,  decreed 
it  the  first  prize,  3,000  francs.  In  his  report  M.  Ville- 
main  says:  — 

"  Obliged  to  limit  itself  in  its  choice,  the  Academy 
has  designated  the  works  which,  through  talent  and  pre 
sumed  influence,  have  appeared  to  answer  best  to  the 
idea  of  its  founder  and  the  varied  destinations  of  its 
work.  It  has  placed  first  of  all  two  books  full  of  labo 
rious  knowledge  and  generous  ardor.  The  one  is  a 
study  of  religious  history,  philosophy,  and  eloquence 
(that  of  M.  de  Pressense').  The  other,  recommended  to 
us  by  the  interests  of  moral  study  as  well  as  by  the  pres 
ent  lesson  of  events,  is  deserving  the  choice  of  the  Acad 
emy.  This  is  U  Abolition  de  Vesclavage,  by  M.  Cochin, 
former  maire  and  municipal  councillor  of  the  city  of 
Paris.  The  distinctive  feature,  the  eminent  merit  of  the 
author,  is  that  of  uniting  scientific  precision  and  philan- 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  vii 

thropic  ardor,  of  demanding  with  eloquent  zeal  the  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  name  of  God  and  humanity,  and  of 
demonstrating  in  minute  detail  all  the  advantages  of  this 
useful  moral  reform.  The  author  is  at  once  an  apostle 
and  an  economist.  This  double  power  of  fervor  and  of 
science  marks  the  Introduction,  addressed  to  the  Duke 
de  Broglie  as  the  first  promoter  of  the  intervention  of 
France  in  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade,  and  the  con 
stant  and  enlightened  defender  of  emancipation  in  all 
the  stages  through  which  this  cause  has  passed,  to  the 
complete  abolition  of  slavery,  abruptly  proclaimed  in  the 
French  colonies  in  1848,  and  even  then  as  salutary  as 
irrevocable. 

"  Setting  out  from  this  too  much  disputed  example, 
M.  Cochin  shows  what  has  been  done  for  humanity  in  the 
colonies  of  two  powerful  nations,  and  of  two  others  no 
less  civilized  ;  and  also  how  many  slaves  still  remain  in 
the  Christian  world,  — more  than  4,000,000  in  a  portion 
of  the  republican  States  of  America,  where  appears  at 
this  moment  that  great  civil  war,  that  convulsion  of  an 
empire  substituted  for  a  question  of  philanthropy,  as  if  to 
attest  how  great  peril  and  calamity  are  comprised  in  so 
cial  injustice.  We  read  the  eloquent  summary  of  facts 
prior  to  the  war,  the  fatal  symptoms,  the  aggravated  dif 
ficulties  which  preceded  the  formidable  crisis,  the  great 
ness  of  which  retards  the  catastrophe,  without  ceasing  to 
render  it  inevitable.  The  heart  of  the  author  does  not 
falter,  but,  in  the  face  of  the  vicissitudes  of  war,  while 
invoking  peace,  he  counsels,  he  demands,  he  predicts,  the 
abolition  of  slavery  ;  then,  turning  from  a  land  desolated 
by  war,  he  more  forcibly  repeats  the  course  that  policy  as 
well  as  humanity  should  hasten  to  adopt  where  slavery  is 
not  yet  attacked  and  defended  by  arms,  where  it  is  still 
at  peace,  and  where  it  only  risks  drawing  on  the  masters 


viii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

the  dangers  of  foreign  conquest,  and  tempting  other 
slave  states  by  calculations  of  ambition  or  solidarity. 

"  After  this  review  of  slavery  in  the  Christian  world  of 
our  day,  we  take  up  with  the  author  the  question  on  its 
own  merits,  according  to  the  Mosaic  law,  philosophy,  and 
the  Gospel.  We  see  religion  unceasingly  active  in  the 
lightening  of  this  scourge.  If,  after  having  labored  to 
destroy  it  in  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages,  it  sees  it 
spring  up  anew  in  modern  times,  it  more  than  ever  be 
longs  to  it  to  se.cond  policy  and  science  united  in  render 
ing  it  impossible  under  the  latest  form  which  it  has 
assumed. 

"  Such  is  this  plea  against  slavery.  Full  of  generous 
sentiments  and  exact  researches,  a  blending  of  moral  and 
statistical  philosophy,  this  book  is  one  of  the  best  that  can 
be  brought  to  the  support  of  the  great  reform  which  the 
genius  of  Modern  Europe  has  begun  in  its  colonies,  and 
which  its  mediation  and  example  should  extend  through 
out  the  world. 

"  The  Academy  decrees  to  each  of  these  works  a  prize 
of  3,000  francs." 

Besides  this  flattering  testimonial,  the  Pope  has  con 
ferred  an  order  of  knighthood  on  the  author  in  recom 
pense  for  his  work,  and  the  most  illustrious  of  the  French 
bishops,  Monseigneur  d'Orleans,  has  addressed  him  a  let 
ter  in  eulogy  of  its  merits. 

Its  value  in  this  country  can  hardly  be  estimated,  ap 
pearing  as  it  does  on  the  eve  of -a  crisis  of  emancipation, 
caused  abruptly,  as  in  the  French  colonies,  by  revolution, 
and  which,  as  in  these,  will  wreck  for  a  time  the  prosper 
ity  of  the  States  in  which  it  is  wrought,  or  lead  them  with 
out  suffering  to  a  more  prosperous  condition,  according 
as  we  profit  by  the  experience  of  our  neighbors.  This 
experience  M.  Cochin  has  lucidly  summed  up,  proving 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  ix 

beyond  dispute,  that  emancipation  by  itself  alone  has 
caused  less  disturbance  than  a  hail-storm  or  a  year  of 
drought  would  have  done.  He  has  shown  more,  —  that, 
in  the  British  West  India  Islands,  with  the  single  excep 
tion  of  Jamaica,  the  result  of  emancipation  has  been  to 
increase  the  progress  and  wealth  of  the  islands,  and  that 
in  Jamaica  itself,  while  its  general  results  have  been  most 
beneficent,  any  apparent  failure  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
island  is  to  be  traced  to  local  causes  and  the  home  legis 
lation  upon  sugar,  the  details  and  results  of  which  are 
fully  explained. 

Thanks  are  due,  in  conclusion,  to  Messrs.  Orestes  A. 
Brownson  and  George  Sumner,  the  friends  and  corre 
spondents  of  the  author,  who  have  kindly  furnished  the 
facts  relating  to  his  personal  history. 

MARY  L.  BOOTH. 

BOSTON,  December  1,  1862. 


CONTENTS. 


DEDICATION    AND    INTRODUCTION 1 

BOOK     FIRST. 

FRENCH     COLONIES. 

CHAPTER    I. 

EMANCIPATION    BY    THE  CONVENTION,  AND   THE    UK-ESTABLISH 
MENT  OF -SLAVERY  BY  THE  CONSULATE   (1794-1802)        .          .       25 

CHAPTER    II. 
FROM  THE  RE-ESTABLISHMENT  OF  SLAVERY  BY  THE  CONSULATE 

(1802)    TO    ITS    SECOND    ABOLITION    BY    THE    REPUBLIC    OF     1848  51 

CHAPTER    III. 
EMANCIPATION  BY  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  1848          .         .         .         .87 

CHAPTER    IV. 
RESULTS  OF  EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES      .          .        98 

CHAPTER    V . 
THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1848  IN  THE  COLONIES      ....     101 

§  1.  Martiuico         .         .         ...          .         .         .          101 

§  2.   Guadalotipe          .          •  -       •         •         •     7    •         •         •     1°" 

§  3.   The  Isle  of  Bourbon,  or  Reunion       «•         *-         .          .          II- 
§  4.   Guiana .          .117 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    VI. 
LAWS  . •      .         .         .121 

CHAPTER    VII. 
MILITARY  FORCE  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .130 

CHAPTER    VIII. 
COURTS  OF  JUSTICE    .         .      '"  .         .         .         .         .         .         .     133 

CHAPTER    IX. 

INDEMNITY .  .143 

CHAPTER    X. 
PRODUCTION  AND  COMMERCE. — WAGES  AND  PROPERTY      .          .154 

CHAPTER    XI. 
THE  QUESTION  or  SUGARS          .         .         .         .         .         .         .174 

§  1.  The  Sugar  Question  before  Emancipation  .         .    *    .          177 
§  2.  The  Sugar  Question  from  Emancipation  to  the  Law  of 

May  23,  1860  .          ...          .          .          .          .189 

§  3.   Coffee,  Cocoa,  Tea 198 

CHAPTER    XII. 
LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION    .         .  .*  .         .  '  202 

CHAPTER    XIII. 
THE  COLONIAL  COMPACT    .         ...         .          •         .  233 

CHAPTER    XIV. 
POPULATION,  FAMILY,  SOCIAL  CONDITION  .         .  .         .241 

CHAPTER    XV. 

RELIGION,  INSTRUCTION       .         .                   .  ,                                  254 

§  1.  Before  the  Abolition  of  Slavery          .  .         .          .         254 

I.  Guiana        .         .         .         .  .          .                         265 

II.  Martinico         .          .          .          .  .                              268 


%  CONTENTS.  xiii 

III.  Guadaloupe          .......     269 

IV.  Bourbon  .......          270 

§  2.  After  the  Abolition  of  Slavery       .          .          .         .          .  *  275 

CHAPTER    XVI. 
RESUME 287 


BOOK     SECOND. 

ENGLISH     COLONIES. 

CHAPTER    I. 

SLAVERY  IN  ENGLAKD  AND  ITS  COLONIES  UNTIL  THE  EMANCIPA 
TION  BILL  or  AUGUST  28,  1833       .         .         .         .         .         .     305 

CHAPTER     II. 
INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION    ON  THE  FREED  CLASSES      .         .     333 

CHAPTER    III. 

INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  COLONIES        .         .  .     342 

§  1.  Labor  and  Immigration     .          .          .          .          .  .          342 

§  2.  Production,  the  Sugar  Law,  Commercial  Freedom  .  .356 

CHAPTER    IV. 
RESUME  .         .         .         .381 


BOOK     THIRD. 

COLONIES    OF   DENMARK,    SWEDEN,    AND    HOLLAND. 

I.  Danish  Colonies     .......••     389 

II.   Swedish  Colonies 395 

111.  Dutch  Colonies  .          .          -396 


XIV  CONTENTS.  . 

APPENDIX. 

FRENCH     COLONIES. 

Tables  of  the  Imports  and  Exports  of  the  French  Colonies  before  and 

after  1848  .       '  .         .          .          .  ..          .          .          .  404 

Comparative  Condition  of  Imports  and  Exports  from  1848  to  1857  406 

Price  of  Colonial  Sugar  from  1819  to  1859       .          ...          .  408 

Price  of  Native  Sugar  from  1830  to  1859      .          .          .          .         ..  409 

ENGLISH     COLONIES. 

Statistics  of  the  English  Colonies  in  America  .  .  .  .  .410 
Sugars  imported  into  the  United  Kingdom  since  1851  .  .  .  411 
Latin  Text  relative  to  the  Conversion  of  England  to  Christianity  .  412 


INTRODUCTION. 


TO   M.   LE  DUO  DE   B$OGLIE. 

MONSIEUR  LE  Due  :  — 

If  I  did  not  dedicate  this  book  to  you,  I  should  think 
myself  doubly  ungrateful. 

I  should  forget  that  you  had  approved  my  designs,  aided 
my  researches,  encouraged  my  perseverance. 
-  I  should  forget,  above  all,  that  to  you  belongs  the  question 
to  which  I  devote  my  efforts.  Your  hand  has  contributed 
more  than  any  other  to  break  at  length,  by  repeated  blows, 
the  heavy  and  unjust  bond  which  held,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  French  flag,  in  the  face  of  Christian  altars,  in  the 
midst  of  the  nineteenth  century,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  human  beings  in  slavery. 

You  it  was  that,  March  28,  1822,  proposed  to  the  Cham 
ber  of  Peers  an  address  to  the  king,  demanding  that  he 
should  prescribe  measures  suited  better  to  secure  the  entire 
abolition  of  the  traffic  in  slaves. 

You  it  was  that,  January  24,  182Y,  on  the  occasion  of 
Article  I.  of  the  projected  law  for  the  suppression  of  the 
negro  slave  trade,  pronounced  a  memorable  speech,  the 
memory  of  which  has  not  perished  with  time.* 

You  it  was  that,  March  26,  1840,  was  called  to  the  pres- 

*  See  the  learned  Memoir  of  M.  Charles  Giraud  to  the  Institute  upon  Negro 
Slavery,  Comptes  rendus  de  VAcademie  des  Sciences  morales,  1861,  p.  194. 

1  A 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

idency  of  the  celebrated  commission  charged  with  drawing 
up  the  plan  of  emancipation  for  the  colonies,  and  their  polit 
ical  constitution. 

You  it  was  that,  in  March,  1843,  after  an  immense  inves 
tigation,  and  prodigious  labors,  presented  to  the  Minister  of 
the  Marine  the  report  of  this  commission. 

You  it  was  that,  May  29,  1845,  signed,  after  negotiat 
ing  the  agreement  concluded  with  her  Britannic  Majesty 
for  the  suppression  of  the  negro'  slave-trade,  an  agreement 
which  reconciled  the  interests  of  humanity  with  the  just 
national  susceptibilitfes  aroused  by  the  treaties  of  1831  and 
1833  and  the  agreement  of  1841. 

You  it  was  that,  July  T,  1845,  supported,  by  a  speech  in 
the  Chamber  of  Peers,  the  bills  designed  to  favor  the  re 
demption,  education,  and  well-being  of  slaves. 

You  it  was  that,  January  13,  1846,  defended  the  agree 
ment  of  May  29,  attacked  in  the  Chamber  of  Peers. 

After  the  abolition  of  slavery  (March  4,  1848),  when  it 
became  imperative  to  establish  in  our  distant  possessions 
the  order  endangered  by  the  Revolution,  it  was  you  who 
was  called  upon,  November  22,  1849,  to  preside  over  the 
commission  charged  with  framing  the  new  regime  of  the 
colonies. 

Ten  years  later,  when  a  new  colonial  commission  exam 
ined  the  difficult  questions  raised  by  the  enlistment  of 
negroes  on  the  African  coast,  it  was  again  tovyou,  in  1858, 
that  this  commission  turned,  believing  itself  unable  to  dis 
pense  in  such  a  matter  with  the  authority  of  your  incom 
parable  experience. 

What  would  it  be,  if  I  were  to  add  to  the  enumeration  of 
so  many  rjublic  acts  the  results  of  your  influence,  con 
stantly  occupied  during  the  past  forty  years  with  the 
obscure  interests  of  the  humble  clients  of  whom  Provi 
dence  has  made  you  counsel  ? 

You  have  encountered  in  this  struggle  obstinate  oppo- 


INTKODUCTION.  3 

nents,  but  also  indefatigable  allies.  One  need  not  complain 
when  he  can  associate*  in  the  defence  of  the  same  cause  the> 
practical  reason  of  MM.  Passy  and  de  Tracy,  the  authors* 
of  the  first  plans  of  emancipation,  the  admirable  language 
of  MM.  de  Remusat  and  de  Tocqueville,  the  supporters 
of  these  projects,  the  eloquence  of  M.  Guizot,  M.  de  La- 
martine,  or  M.  Berryer,  the  zeal  of  M.  de  Gasparin,  the 
knowledge  of  M.  Wallon,  the  democratic  ardor  of  M. 
Schoelcher,  in  a  word,  the  co-operation  of  the  various  and 
numerous  soldiers  of  that  vast  army  which  justice  has 
power  to  raise  up  in  France  on  every  side. 

There  has  not  been  a  twelvemonth,  scarcely  a  day,  for 
the  last  forty  years,  in  which,  in  concert  with  these  gen 
erous  auxiliaries,  you  have  not  kept  awake  the  authorities 
by  interpellations,  public  opinion  by  publications,  authors 
by  rewards,  travellers  by  questions,  France-  and  Europe  by 
continual  discussion,  the  wide-spread  and  peaceful  agitation 
of  mercy  which  England  had  already  witnessed,  and  which, 
growing  by  degrees  and  at  length  raising  its  voice  above 
the  clamors  of  interest,  has  ended  by  inscribing  in  the 
depths  of  every  conscience  the  irrepressible  condemnation 
of  slavery.  By  your  memorable  report  of  1843,  you  wrote 
the  sentence,  you  pronounced  the  condemnation  ;  the  Re 
public  of  1848  had  the  honor  of  carrying  it  into  effect. 

It  is  to  you  that  emancipation  in  the  French  colonies 
is  chiefly  due.  After  the  fatigues  of  a  long  career,  inter 
spersed  with  triumphs  and  disappointments,  "there  is  not 
a  drop  of  sweat  upon  the  brow,"  in  the  beautiful  language 
of  M.  Guizot,  "which  such  a  palm-wreath  cannot  dry."  * 

Nevertheless,  moved  by  the  noise  of  the  violent  agita 
tions  of  the  United  States,  you  follow,  with  an  anxious 
glance,  slavery  in  its  new  aspects,  no  longer  afflicting  only 
a  few  little  second-rate  communities,  but  aggrandized,  en 
venomed,  menacing  the  peace,  the  very  existence,  of  one 

*  Vie  de  Washington. 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

of  the  first  nations  possessed  by  earth  and  known  in  his 
tory.  You  ask  yourself  whether  in  this  sad  life,  in  which 
one  bewails  his  affections,  one  by  one,  he  must. in  the  same 
manner  wear  mourning  for  his  hopes  ;  whether  he  must 
renounce  emancipation  ;  what  is  the  present  position,  what 
the  future,  of  this  great  question,  one  of  the  passions  of 
your  soul.  Where  do  we  stand  after  a  century  of  effort  ? 

I. 

More  than  half  a  century  ago,  at  the  time  when  Mr. 
Wilberforce  was  soliciting  of  the  British  Parliament  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  Mr.  Pitt  exclaimed  :  "  Man 
kind  is  now  likely  to  be  delivered  from  the  greatest  prac 
tical  evil  that  has  ever  afflicted  the  human  race,  from  the 
severest  and  most  extensive  calamity  ever  recorded  in  the 
history  of  the  world.''  This  crown,  which  the  eighteenth 
century  failed  to  gain,  the  nineteenth,  already  inclining 
towards  its  closing  years,  does  not  yet  hold  in  its  hands, 
for  the  great  work  of  the  emancipation  of  slaves  in  the 
bosom  of  Christian  nations  is  far  from  being  accomplished. 

The  slave-trade,  to  say  nothing  of  the  special  laws  of  each 
country,  has  been  condemned  by  three  Congresses,  a  Papal 
bull,  twenty-six  treaties,  and  more  than  a  hundred  agree 
ments  with  the  petty  African  sovereigns.  Glorious  days 
have  witnessed  the  birth  to  freedom  of  eight  hundred 
thousand  slaves  emancipated  by  England,*  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  by  France, f  and  several  thousand  by 
Denmark  and  Sweden. 

But  the  slave-trade  is  still  carried  on ;  it  defies  laws,  it 
braves  cruisers.  The  United  States  possess  by  themselves 
alone  more  than  four  million  slaves  ;  Brazil,  at  least  two 
million ;  the  Dutch  colonies,  more  than  a  hundred  thou- 

*  Exact  number,  770,390,  without  including  India  and  Ceylon. 

t  Exact  number,  248,560,  including  Senegal,  Nossi-bd,  and  St.  Mary. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

sand ;  the  Spanish  colonies,  six  hundred  thousand.  There 
remain,  therefore,  upon  Christian  territory,  without  speaking 
of  the  heathen  world,  nearly  seven  million  baptized  slaves  ! 

Why,  then,  is  the  voice  of  the  illustrious  men  who  have 
carried  the  work  of  emancipation  so  far,  and  to  whom  re 
verts  the  immortal  honor  of  having  insured  one  of  the 
most  glorious  triumphs  which  human  communities  have 
ever  won  over  themselves,  —  why  is  it  extinct  or  silent  ? 

It  seems  that  this  century,  so  quickly  enthused  by,  and 
so  soon  weary  of,  so  many  generous  causes,  again  stands 
still ;  is  it  to  repose  or  to  repent  ? 

The  silence  of  public  opinion  and  its  masters  has  another 
cause.  There  is  silence,  because  there  is  nothing  more  to 
say. 

The  unlawfulness  of  servitude  belongs,  in  fact,  to  the 
few  truths  which  the  Gospel,  science,  and  political  liberty 
have  rendered  rulers  of  the  human  conscience  throughout 
all  Europe. 

Philosophy  accords  to 'all  slaves  a  soul  equal  to  our  own, 
perhaps  refused  them  by  Aristotle.*  Physiology  declares 
the  white  and  black,  despite  important  differences,  mem 
bers  of  the  same  family.  History  discovers  between  the 
possessors  and  tile  possessed  no  trace  of  lawful  conquest. 
The  law  no  longer  recognizes  any  validity  to  a  pretended 
contract  whose  title  has  no  existence,  whose  object  is 
illicit,  and  whose  parties  are,  the  one  without  free  will, 
the  other  without  good  faith. f  Ethnology  raises  to  the 
height  of  an  admirable  law  the  radical  difference,  which 
places  in  the  first  rank  on  earth  the  races  that  work,  like 
the  Northern  Europeans,  and  in  the  last  rank  the  races 
that  are  served,  like  the  Turks.  Political  economy  affirms 


*  Wallon,  Histoire  de  VEsdavage  dans  V  Antiquite,  Tom.  I.  Chap.  XI.  p.  356. 
Moehler,  Abolition  de  FEsdcwage  par  le  Christianisme  dans  les  guinze  premiers 
Siedes,  Chap.  II.,  translation,  Symon  de  Latreiche,  1841,  p.  199. 

f  Du  Droit  industries,  by  M.  Eenouard,  Part  I.  Chap.  V.    Paris,  1860. 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

the  superiority  of  free  over  forced  labor,  and  condemns 
everything  that  deprives  man  of  the  essential  condition 
of  his  moral  and  material  life,  —  the  family.  Policy  and 
charity,  from  different  stand-points,  accept  the  same  con 
clusion  ;  charity,  more  tender,  detests  slavery  because  it 
oppresses  the  inferior  race ;  policy,  more  elevated,  con 
demns  it  especially  because  it  corrupts  the  superior  race. 

Like  sciences,  parties,  and  faiths  are  in  unison.   • 

All  nations,  free  or  despotic,  monarchical  or  republican, 
all  clergies,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  have  been  accomplices 
of  slavery.  The  nations  which  continue  such  are  the 
Southern  United  States  and  Holland,  two  Protestant  na 
tions  ;  Spain  and  Brazil,  two  Catholic  monarchies.  But 
England  and  France,  the  Northern  United  States  and  Peru, 
Sweden  and  Portugal,  have  renounced  the  participation. 
The  Anglicans,  Baptists,  and  Wesleyans  share  as  largely 
as  the  Catholics  in  this  salutary  repentance.  So  great  a 
question  is  a  happy  ground  where  tolerance  and  union  are 
acquired  properties  and  necessary  forces.  This  remarkable 
harmony  is  the  triumph  of  our  age :  it  is  complete  in  the 
domain  of  ideas  ;  the  principal  nations  of  Europe  have  con 
formed  their  conduct  to  their  conviction  ;  they  are  silent, 
persuaded  that  time  will  do  the  rest. 

Unhappily,  it  is  the  nature  of  slavery  unceasingly  to 
spring  up  anew  ;  when  stifled  on  one  point  of  the  earth, 
it  breaks  forth  and  spreads  on  another. 

It  springs  up  anew  —  a  thing  wellnigh  incredible  !  —  in 
purely  theoretical  discussions  ;  it  is  not  even  entirely  ex 
pelled  from  reasoning.  In  America  whole  libraries  are 
composed  of  books  in  favor  of  slavery.  A  school  is  formed 
for  its  defence,  which  JVf .  de  Gasparin  pungently  styles  the 
school  of  cottony  theology.*  In  England,  men  dare  write  : 
"  Our  grandfathers  committed  the  crime,  our  fathers  re 
pented  it,  to  us  belongs  reflection  ;  we  may  perhaps  be 
*  The  Uprising  of  a  Great  People,  p.  76. 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

mistaken/7  *  In  France  they  repeat,  without  examination, 
that  emancipation  has  killed  the  colonies.  Public  opinion 
suffers  itself  to  be  influenced  more  than  is  believed  by  this 
repentance  for  a  good  action.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
human  mind  to  doubt  on  the  morrow  its  deeds  of  yester 
day.  The  inconveniences  of  every  infant  act  disturbs  the 
vision  and  revives  objections  ;  errors  the  most  thoroughly 
uprooted  have  a  speedy  reaction,  a  second  season,  as  it 
were,  a  dangerous  moment,  when  it  is  necessary  to  begin 
again  to  justify  evidence,  and  to  demonstrate  the  common 
place. 

Moreover,  among  the  most  grievous  consequences  of  a 
wrong  is  the  weariness,  the  indifference,  induced  by  the 
reiterated  exposition  of  its  evils.  Declamation  and  satiety 
have  rendered  the  cause  of  the  slaves  fastidious,  almost 
suspicious,  before  it  is  won.  There  are  those  who  have 
the  same  contempt  for  the  question  of  slavery  as  for  the 
slave  himself.  Insensible  to  these  difficulties,  I  content 
myself  with  repeating  what  Mr.  Canning  said  to  Mr.  Dun- 
das  more  than  half  a  century  ago  :  "So  long  as  there  are 
no  clear  and  positive  refutations  of  the  old  arguments,  I 
shall  continue  to  use  them.77  f 

But  new  arguments  abound,  for  slavery  springs  up  anew 
much  more  in  facts  than  in  ideas. 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  slavery  almost  entirely  dis 
appeared  from  Europe,  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  about  the  twelfth  century. J  In  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth,  it  again  revived.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
kings  encouraged  it  by  treaties,  and  aided  it  by  premiums. 
In  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  attacked ;  in  the  nine- 

*  London  Times,  1861. 

t  Speech  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  March  1,  1799. 

t  Michelet,  Rapport  a  V  Academic  des  Sciences  morales,  August  31,  1839.  Nau- 
det,  Memoir es  sur  la  Condition  des  Personnes.  Wallon,  Histoire  de  VEsclavage  dans 
FAntiquite,  1840.  Edouard  Biot,  De  V  Abolition  de  VEsclavage  ancien  en  Occident, 
1840.  Yanoski,  De  V  Abolition  de  VEsdavage  ancien  au  Moyen  Age,  1860. 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

teenth,  it  is  effaced  from  the  laws  of  England  and  France ; 
at  the  same  moment  it  is  spreading,  at  a  rate  hitherto 
unknown,  in  the  two  most  powerful  states  of  America,  — 
the  vast  and  flourishing  empire  of  Brazil,  and  the  young, 
free,  and  great  republic  of  the  United  States. 

I  write  in  1861,  which,  during  the  same  month,  has  seen 
the  Emperor  of  Eussia  (March  19)  proclaim  the  emancipa 
tion  of  more  than  twenty  million  serfs,  and,  on  another 
continent,  has  witnessed  the  installation  of  the  President 
of  the  republic  of  the  United  States  (March  4)  greeted  by 
the  separation  of  the  slaveholding  States,  which  have  risen 
in  arms  to  save  their  living  property  at  the  expense  of  the 
country. 

In  the  face  of  such  events,  it  is  impossible  to  dispute 
either  the  novelty,  or  the  abundance,  or  the  terrible  oppor 
tuneness  of  arguments. 

Only,  it  is  fitting  to  present  them  from  a  new  stand-point. 

As  the  systems  invented  by  the  human  mind  appear  on 
the  scene  of  history  in  a  certain  regular  order,  as  demon 
strated  by  M.  Cousin,  so  in  a  long-continued  debate  do 
arguments  also  present  themselves  in  a  certain  order,  and 
demonstrations,  without  changing  their  object,  change  form. 
It  is  usual  to  begin  with  the  extremes.  Between  feelings 
and  interests,  between  emotion  and  menaces,  no  agreement 
is  possible.  By  degrees,  they  are  drawn  nearer  by  reason 
ing,  facts  are  taken  as  arbiters,  and  harmony  is  established 
on  practical  grounds. 

The  arguments  of  a  hundred  years  ago  for  and  against 
slavery  are  no  longer  wholly  in  place. 

In  1778,  Sir  Peter  Parker,  Governor  of  Jamaica,  declared 
that  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  would  deprive  England 
of  her  colonies,  half  her  commerce,  and  her  rank  as  a  mari 
time  power.* 

*  "  The  abolition  of  the  African  slave-trade  would  cause  a  general  desponden 
cy  among  the  negroes,  and  gradually  decrease  population,  aud  consequently  the 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

The  Abolitionists  of  the  same  epoch  (1792)  proclaimed, 
in  a  sort  of  stupidly  pious  crusade,  universal  abstention 
from  the  use  of  sugar.* 

In  France,  during  this  time,  the  Minister  of  the  Marine 
wrote  to  the  Governor  of  St.  Domingo  (1T11)  :  — 

"  His  Majesty  thinks  that  it  is  important  to  good  order  not 
to  lessen  in  any  degree  the  humiliation  attached  to  the  species, 
a  prejudice  the  more  useful  as  it  exists  in  the  hearts  of  the 
slaves  themselves,  and  contributes  mainly  to  the  repose  of  the 
colonies."  f 

On  the  other  side,  the  Abolitionists,  braving  evidence  and 
history,  accorded  to  the  black  race  the  most  brilliant  intel 
lectual  destinies,  and  Gre*goire  composed  a  work  on  Negro 
Literature. 

We  are  no  longer  a  prey  to  these  exaggerations.  Feel 
ing  keeps  its  place,  reason  has  taken  its  stand,  prejudice 
has  lost  what  did  not  belong  to  it.  We  are  in  the  presence 
of  facts,  in  the  presence  of  practical  realities.  It  would  be 
too  easy  to  enter  into  a  pathetic  appeal  ;  we  must  turn 
aside  from  tears,  and  consult  figures. 

Let  us  institute  an  inquiry,  therefore,  on  the  comparative 
results  of  emancipation  in  the  countries  which  have  proclaimed 
it,  and  of  slavery  in  the  countries  where  it  is  maintained.  J 

produce  of  our  islands,  and  must  in  time  destroy  nearly  one  half  our  commerce, 
and  take  from  Great  Britain  all  pretensions  to  the  rank  she  now  holds,  of  being 
the  first  maritime  power  in  the  world." 

*  An  Address  to  his  Royal  Highness,  the  Duke  of  York,  against  the  Use  of 
Sugar,  1792 :  —  "As  the  slavery  of  the  negroes  is  owing  to  the  cultivation  of  sugar, 
all  the  enemies  of  this  slavery,  all  who  wish  its  abolition,  should  altogether  ab 
stain  from  the  use  of  this  commodity  till  such  time  as  effectual  measures  shall 
be  taken  to  prevent  the  further  importation  of  slaves,  and  proper  measures  be 
adopted  to  procure  their  freedom  for  such  as  are  now  in  our  plantations." 
(Biblioiheque  de  I1  Arsenal,  Papiers  de  Gregoire,  Vol.  II.) 
f  May  27, 1771.  (Histoire  de  la  Guadeloupe,  by  M.  Lacour,  1855  - 1860,  p.  392.) 
J  The  present  volume,  which  is  complete  in  itself,  gives  the  results  of  eman 
cipation  wherever  effected.  The  following  volume,  the  translation  of  which  is 
not  as  yet  published,  depicts  slavery  in  the  countries  where  it  still  exists,  treats 
briefly  of  Africa  and  the  slave-trade,  and  concludes  with  a  chapter  on  Christi 
anity  and  Slavery.  —  TK. 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

II. 

The  outline  of  this  inquiry  is  as  follows.* 
1.  What  has  been  the  fate  of  the  nineteen  slave  colonies 
of  England  since  the  Emancipation  Bill  of  1834?     Have 

*  The  results  of  the  English  experiment  have  been  fully  set  forth  in  the  Parlia- 
•  mentary  documents,  translations,  and  reports,  published  in  1840,  1841,  and  1842, 
by  our  Minister  of  the  Marine  and  the  Colonies ;  lastly,  and  above  all,  in  the  mem 
orable  report  of  the  President  of  the  Colonial  Commission,  the  Duke  de  Broglie. 
We  have  only  to  continue  the  inquiry  to  our  own  time,  —  an  easy  task,  as  Eng 
land  publishes  all  that  she  does,  and  lives  in  the  midst  of  a  perpetual  investiga 
tion.  I  owe  my  acquaintance  with  the  Parliamentary  documents  to  my  honora 
ble  friend  Mr.  Monsell,  member  of  Parliament,  to  two  of  the  sons  of  William 
Wilberforce,  and  lastly  to  the  indefatigable  and  universal  kindness  of  Mr.  Senior. 

The  results  of  the  French  experiment  are  more  recent  and  less  known. 
Thanks  to  the  permission  of  the  Count  de  Chasseloup-Laubat,  Minister  of  the 
Colonies,  I  have  been  admitted  to  researches  throughout  all  the  departments  of 
the  ministry,  and  I  owe  the  warmest  thanks  to  the  Minister,  to  the  Baron  de 
Roujoux,  the  Director  of  the  Colonies,  to  the  continual  encouragement  of  one 
of  the  persons  best  acquainted  with  all  colonial  questions,  M.  Jules  Delarbre, 
Director  of  the  Cabinet,  and,  lastly,  to  the  helpful  assistance  of  MM.  Beau, 
Guiraud,  du  Chayla,  Roy,  Farcy,  Eguyer,  Avalle,  etc. 

In  the  colonies  I  have  consulted  with  the  utmost  profit  M.  Husson,  Director 
of  the  Interior  at  Martinico,  M.  Constant  Mourette,  and  inhabitants  of  the  vari 
ous  French  possessions.  Outside  the  ministry,  the  excellent  writings  of  MM. 
Jules  Duval  and  Lepelletier  Saint-Remy,  who,  more  than  any  other,  possess  the 
merit  and  talent  of  interesting  France  in  her  too  often  forgotten  colonies,  Galos, 
Baudrillart,  Lacour,  de  Chazelles,  Legoyt,  Richelot,  Chemin-Dupontes,  etc., 
have  been  of  no  less  service  to  me  than  the  reports  to  the  Chambers,  old 
and  new,  presented  by  superior  men  like  MM.  Dumon,  Passy,  de  Tocqueville, 
Rossi,  Beugnot,  Benoist-d'Azy,  Be"hic,  Mestro,  Kolb-Bernard,  Ancel,  Hubert-De- 
lisle,  Caffarelli,  etc.,  without  forgetting  the  memorable  speeches  of  MM.  de 
Montalembert,  de  Gasparin,  de  Lamartine,  de  Tracy,  de  R4musat,  de  Lasteyrie, 
d'Haussonville,  or  the  books  and  labors  of  MM.  Schoelcher,  Castelli,  Lechev- 
alier,  Bayle-Mouillard,  Barbaroux,  Layrle,  d'Avrainville,  and  so  many  other  en 
lightened  adversaries  of  slavery,  or  intelligent  defenders  of  colonial  prosperity, 
industry,  the  navy,  and  national  greatness.  I  owe  thanks,  lastly,  to  Mgr.  Des- 
prez,  formerly  Bishop  of  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  now  Archbishop  of  Toulouse,  to 
the  venerable  Abb£  Jean  de  la  Mennais,  founder  of  the  brothers  de  Ploernel, 
•who  conduct  nearly  all  the  colonial  schools^  to  the  Abbe"  Se"nac,  to  R.  P.  Gratry, 
to  the  Abb£  Perreyve,  and  to  the  Abbe"  Gaduel,  who  have  kindly  furnished  me 
with  valuable  information,  or  revised  and  approved  the  chapters  relating  to  the 
influence  of  Christianity. 

As  to  historical  documents,  the  archives  of  the  Colonial  Ministry  have  been 
opened  to  me,  with  inexhaustible  liberality,  by  M.  Pierre  Margry,  those  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

they  progressed,  or  declined,  since  this  epoch,  in  morals, 
wealth,  and  happiness  ? 

Has  France  to  repent  of  the  law  of  1848  ?  Has  she 
sacrificed  to  vain  humanitarian  Utopias  the  last  remnants 
of  her  colonial  grandeur?  or,  on  the  contrary,  has  she 

Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  by  M.  Prosper  Faugere,  those  of  the  Seminary  du 
Saint  Esprit,  so  rich  and  curious,  by  the  R.  P.  Schwindenhammer,  the  R.  P. 
Levavasseur,  the  Library  of  the  Institute  by  M.  de  Landresse,  and  that  of  the 
Arsenal  by  M.  Paul  Lacroix. 

American  documents  superabound.  Without  speaking  of  the  great  book  of 
M.  de  Tocqueville,  and  the  celebrated  works  of  our  writers  and  travellers, 
MM.  de  Beaumont,  Michel  Chevalier,  Ampere,  de  Gasparin,  Marmier,  de  Witte, 
etc.,  I  have  collected  a  considerable  number  of  wholly  special  works.  In  the 
choice  of  these  I  have  been  guided  by  the  Count  de  Montalembert,  an  il 
lustrious  and  obliging  friend,  who  knows,  reads,  and  learns  without  parallel, 
with  passionate  curiosity;  by  M.  Jules  Carron,  editor  of  foreign  affairs;  by  the 
eloquent  emancipationist,  Charles  Sumner;  by  the  learned  writer,  Brownson; 
and  by  a  devout  French  missionary  of  the  diocese  of  Natchez,  M.  Buteux;  and 
I  have  been  enabled  to  draw  from  other  sources,  thanks  to  M.  Bailly,  in  the  rich 
and  too  little  known  collection  of  American  books  procured  by  M.  Vattemare  to 
the  library  of  the  City  of  Paris. 

Ignorance  of  the  Spanish  language,  and  the  rarity  of  official  publications  of 
the  governments  of  Madrid,  Lisbon,  and  Rio,  have  annoyed  me,  and  will,  I  fear, 
render  somewhat  incomplete,  despite  the  obligingness  of  M.  Fournier,  First  Sec 
retary  of  the  Embassy  at  Madrid,  the  information  which  I  have  been  able  to 
gather  on  slavery  in  Cuba,  the  Portuguese  possessions,  and  Brazil. 

More  fortunate  here,  I  owe  to  M.  de  Frezals,  Secretary  of  the  French  Legation 
in  Holland,  M.  Lux  of  Haye,  and  Professor  Ackersdyk  of  Utrecht,  abundant 
documents  on  the  state  of  the  question  in  the  Netherlandic  colonies. 

For  twenty  years  the  Revue  Coloniak  has  collected  all  the  facts  relative  to  the 
suppression  of  the  slave-trade,  and  the  exploration  of  Africa.  This  precious 
collection,  with  the  published  accounts  of  the  extensive  travels  of  Livingstone, 
Barth,  etc.,  the  excellent  compends  of  M.  Malte-Brun,  the  Bulletins  de  la  Societe 
de  GeograpUe,  the  correspondence  addressed  by  the  Catholic  missionaries  to  the 
Societe  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi,  the  principal  writings  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries,  —  such  are  the  sources  of  the  too  brief  pages  devoted  to  the  last 
part  of  the  inquiry  which  I  have  undertaken. 

I  owe,  lastly,  deep  gratitude  to  the  Academie  des  Sciences  morales,  which  has 
kindly  listened  to  a  fragment  of  my  work;  to  its  Perpetual  Secretary,  M.  Mignet, 
who  has  aided,  counselled,  and  encouraged  me;  to  its  President,  M.  Giraud,  who 
has  been  pleased  to  approve  this  work  publicly  in  his  learned  Memoir e  sur  VEs- 
clavage  des  Negres,  1861;  to  M.  Albert  de  Broglie,  whose  friendship  has  been  so 
helpful  to  me  from  the  beginning;  to  two  members  of  the  Institute,  M.  Cousin 
and  M.  Saint-Marc  Girardin,  who  have  repeatedly  accorded  to  me  their  valuable 
opinion. 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

opened  to  these  outside  provinces  of  her  empire,  which 
aspire  to,  and  are  bordering  on,  commercial  freedom,  a  purer 
and  happier  future  ? 

Has  the  abolition  of  slavery  annihilated,  or  enriched,  the 
little  colonial  possessions  of  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Por 
tugal  ?  * 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  what  is  the  state  of  religion,  of 
politics,  of  morals,  of  justice,  of  literature,  of  wealth  itself, 
in  the  countries  which  preserve  slavery  ? 

By  what  steps  has  the  republic  of  the  United  States 
descended  to  the  situation  which  threatens  it?  Whence 
comes  it  that,  less  than  a  century  after  the  Revolution  that 
was  so  fruitful  only  because  it  wras  so  just,  we  are  forced 
to  tremble  lest  this  great  work  should  fail,  and  lest  a  young, 
vigorous,  and  powerful  nation  should  be  on  the  point  of 
abandoning  civilization  ?  Whence  comes  it,  —  to  use  the 
words  of  the  eloquent  William  H.  Seward,  —  whence  comes 
it  that  thirty  million  men,  European  by  origin,  Christian 
by  faith,  have  not  known  how  to  combine  prudence  with 
humanity  in  this  perturbing  question  of  slavery,  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  preserve  their  admirable  institutions,  and 
to  preserve  them  in  peace  and  harmony  ? 

In  the  bosom  of  the  flourishing  Catholic  monarchy  of 
South  America,  Brazil,  what  are  the  results  of  slavery  ? 
What  is  the  scope  of  the  emancipation  movement  which  is 
manifesting  itself  there  ?  Will  the  Latins  of  South  America 
have  the  honor  of  setting  an  example  to  the  Saxons  of 
North  America  ? 

What  is  the  economical  position  of  the  Spanish  posses 
sions,  —  of  Cuba,  doubly  privileged,  loaded  with  gifts  from 
Heaven,  and  also  enriched  by  the  trials  of  the  neighboring 

*  To  this  part  of  the  inquiry  might  be  attached  the  abolition  of  serfdom  in 
Russia.  But  the  results  of  the  memorable  measure,  which  is  being  executed 
without  disturbance,  cannot  yet  be  appreciated,  and  so  vast  a  subject  should 
not  be  treated  incidentally. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

colonies,  —  of  Porto  Rico,  a  country  almost  entirely  culti 
vated,  despite  the  climate,  by  a  free  white  race  ? 

By  what  means  has  Holland  been  able  to  avoid  estab 
lishing  slavery  in  her  magnificent  East  Indian  possessions  ? 
By  what  experience  has  this  intelligent  and  prudent  people 
been  brought,  at  this  very  moment,  to  suppress  it  in  its 
colonies  of  Guiana  and  the  Antilles  ? 

In  an  inquiry  already  so  overburdened,  I  shall  not  enter 
upon-  slavery  in  the  Mussulman  or  heathen  countries. 
Christians  might  find  there  more  than  one  example.  There, 
at  least,  slavery  is  in  its  place  .among  other  plagues,  since 
these  nations  have  not  received  the  Gospel.  Progress  has 
its  natural  boundaries  on  the  atlas  ;  it  grows  where  shines 
the  torch  -of  Christianity,  and  barbarism  extends  its  dark 
ness  over  the  rest  of  mankind. 

3.  A  new  series  of  questions  is  connected  with  the  sup 
pression  of  the  traffic  in  slaves.  What  has  been  the  effect 
of  the  memorable  efforts  made  by  Europe  for  the  abolition 
of  the  slave-trade  ? 

What  is  the  condition  of  Africa  ?  What  is  taught  us  of 
its  future  by  missionaries  and  travellers,  —  Livingstone, 
Baikie,  Burton,  Overweg,  Barth,  Raffenel,  Faidherbe,  —  all 
the  great  explorers,  the  great  benefactors  of  this  unhappy 
continent  ? 

In  short,  is  slavery  an  indispensable,  economical  system  ? 
Is  it  an  instrument  of  useful  education  ?  Has  emancipa 
tion  brought  back  the  slaves  to  barbarism  while  leading 
•the  colonies  to  ruin  ?  Is  the  African  race  really  incapable 
of  labor  without  constraint  ?  Is  it  devoted  to  irredeemable 
inferiority  ?  May  what  is  morally  wrong  be  materially 
necessary  ?  o 

I  have  endeavored  to  gather  a  few  facts  which  may  aid 
in  preparing  the  reply  to  these  questions. 

I  may  be  reproached  with  not  having  observed  these 
facts  by  myself,  and  I  do  not  conceal  that  herein  is  an 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

imperfection  of  my  labor.  I  have  made  the  tour  of  the 
world  only  in  books.  But,  under  penalty  of  not  treating 
such  a  subject  as  a  whole,  one  must  indeed  be  resigned  to 
see  with  the  eyes  of  those  who  have  seen  ;  and  if  I  am 
accused  of  having  visited  neither  Timbuctoo  nor  Cayenne, 
nor  even  Senegal  or  Mississippi,  I  can  answer  that  the 
authors  who  write  the  history  of  the  thirteenth  century 
have  not  apparently  lived  in  it ;  that  every  day  men  refer 
the  decision  of  the  gravest  interests  to  judges  whose 
opinion  rests  on  the  impartial  confrontation  of  the  testi 
mony  of  others.  I  dare  say,  at  least,  that  I  have  neg 
lected  nothing  to  collect,  verify,  and  compare  the  most 
abundant  information  and  the  most  authentic  documents. 

You  now  know,  Monsieur  le  Due,  the  programme  of 
my  work  and  its  instruments.  What  are  its  general 
results  ? 

III. 

This  voyage  around  the  world,  from  Africa  to  Asia,  from 
Europe  to  America,  in  search  of  freemen,  —  how  grievous  is 
it  at  first !  . 

One  third  of  the  terrestrial  globe  is  uninhabited  ;  it  is  still 
on  the  fifth  day  of  creation,  —  it  awaits  man. 

Two  thirds  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  rest  of  the  world  are 
where  Europe  was  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  —  they 
await  God. 

By  an  inexplicable  mystery,  the  sun,  whose  hottest  rays' 
call  forth  in  tropical  lands  the  most  luxuriant  vegetation, 
repels  man  thence.  There  is  an  intelligent  race  which 
might  form  in  these  lands  a  civilized  community  ;  it  cannot 
live  there  and  labor.  There  is  a  vigorous  race  which  might 
inhabit  and  cultivate  them  ;  it  develops  therein  no  civiliza 
tion.  At  least,  these  two  races  might  draw  nearer  together  ; 
from  their  united  efforts  might  spring  progress  with  labor  ; 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

from  their  mixed  blood  might  spring  an  intermediate  race, 
predestined  to  possess  and  people  these  regions,  —  a  race 
providentially  made  for  this  climate  by  Him  who  made  the 
climate  for  it.  No  !  Slavery  intervenes. 

Slavery  is,  before  everything,  the  negation  of  the  family. 
Now  man  is  endowed  with  an  astonishing  capacity  for 
suffering.  He  knows  how  to  live  under  ground  or  on  the 
water ;  an  Indian  in  the  forests,  a  Chinaman  in  his  boat,  a 
Laplander  in  his  darkness  ;  but  on  condition  of  being  able 
to  say,  My  wife,  'my  child,  my  mother,  my  boat,  my  cabin, 
my  tools.  The  slave  is  without  family  ;  he  is  not  sure  of 
keeping  his  wife  or  of  knowing  his  father,  his  canoe  is  not 
his  own,  and  when  he  lays  his  hand  on  his  breast,  he  cannot 
say,  "This  skin  is  mine."  Now,  without  these  rights,  the 
man  is  not  a  man,  nature  is  violated  in  his  person. 

Instead  of  families,  slavery  forms  herds.  It  pens  up  cap 
tives,  under  the  guard  of  jailers,  in  a  little  corner  of  one  of 
the  most  magnificent  lands  of  creation  ;  this  land  will  not 
be  peopled.  For  the  relation  of  brother  to  brother  it  sub 
stitutes  that  of  drover  to  ox  and  master  to  cattle  ;  this  land 
will  not  be  civilized.  It  inspires  the  races  with  mutual  hor 
ror  and  aversion  for  each  other  ;  if  ties  are  formed  between 
them,  they  are  criminal  ;  the  two  races  live  together  with 
out  mingling  ;  the  race  of  heirs  predestined  to  these  coun 
tries  will  not  be  founded.  We  shall  see  the  inferior  race 
suffer,  revolt  or  submit,  never  rise,  become  brutalized,  then 
die  out.  We  shall  see  the  superior  race  grow  hardened,  be 
come  corrupt,  become  infatuated  with  crime,  seek  wealth 
therein,  prefer  it  to  everything,  and  find  in  it  debasement, 
dishonor,  then  ruin.  On  beginning  to  write,  I  was  moved 
by  the  fate  of  the  oppressed,  by  the  fate  of  that  unhappy 
race  which  has  made  the  fortune  of  those  who  perpetuate  its 
misery  ;  on  ending,  I  am  seized  with  pit}'  for  the  oppressors, 
I  conjure  them  to  have  pity  on  themselves,  and  to  put  an 
end  to  their  evil-doing. 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

Follow  slavery  under  all  latitudes,  in  all  regions,  what 
ever  the  institutions,  nations,  or  creeds,  everywhere  you 
find  the  same  origin,  the  same  progress,  the  same  law,  the 
same  result;  as  monotonous  and  horrible  as  the  life  of  the 
slaves.  The  history  of  slavery  knows  no  change.  It  is  in 
all  places,  it  has  been  at  every  epoch,  an  obstacle  to  the 
systematic  peopling  of  the  earth,  an  obstacle  to  the  propaga 
tion  of  the  Gospel,  an  obstacle  to  the  modest  elevation  of  the 
inferior  races,  an  obstacle  to  the  progressive  civilization  of 
the  superior  races.  The  moralist  calls  it  a  crime,  the  his 
torian  and  economist  a  scourge. 

Yes,  but  what  is  to  be  done  ?  The  evil  is  the  work  of  the 
past.  To  destroy  it  rashly  would  be  another  evil.  Slavery 
corrupts  communities,  but  emancipation  destroys  them. 
What  is  to  be  done?  • 

The  experiment  of  both  systems  has  been  made  ;  we  may 
therefore  compare  them.  This  comparison  is  the  whole 
scope  of  my  work. 

Assuredly,  emancipation  was  the  occasion  of  losses  and 
deplorable  misfortunes.  "  The  punishment  of  faults,"  says 
M.  Thiers,  "  would  be  too  light,  indeed,  if  to  cease  persisting 
in  them  sufficed  to  abolish  the  consequences.7'*  These 
troublesome  consequences  are  not  all  ended.  We  are  in 
great  haste,  indeed  !  We  demand  of  twenty  years  of  liberty 
to  repair  the  results  of  two  hundred  years  of  slavery  ;  we 
cannot  endure  the  idea  of  laboring  without  the  hope  of  con 
templating  the  result  of  our  efforts. 

Nevertheless,  our  impatience  has  already  wherewith  to 
satisfy  itself;  after  ten  years,  the  fears  for  the  colonies  of 
France  and  England  have  been  dissipated.  It  seems  as 
though  each  colony  had  received  the  mission  of  represent 
ing  a  distinct  experience.  We  shall  see  in  the  investigation 
which  is  outlined  in  this  book  the  success  of  emancipation 
depend, — an  Antigua,  on  religious  education  ;  in  Barbadoes, 

*  Histoire  du  Consulat  et  de  I1  Empire,  Tom.  XVII.  Liv.  LI.  p.  80. 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

• 

on  the  numbers  of  the  population  ;  in  Martinico,  on  the  intel 
ligent  activity  of  the  colonists  j.  in  St.  Thomas,  on  commer 
cial  freedom  ;  in  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  on  the  precautions 
taken  from  the  beginning  to  maintain  labor  ;  in  English  Gui 
ana,  on  the  progress  of  small  estates  ;  in  Mauritius,  on  the 
facility  of  procuring  laborers.  We  shall  see,  on  the  contrary, 
long  sufferings  caused  in  Guadaloupe  by  political  disturb 
ances  ;  in  Jamaica,  by  the  ill-will  of  the  former  masters  ; 
in  French  Guiana,  by  the  scarcity  of  capital  and  the  insuffi 
ciency  of  population  on  a  vast  territory.  But  whatever  may 
be  these  difficulties,  we  shall  see  all  these  little  communities 
finally  uprise,  emerge  from  the  old  system  of  the  colonial 
compact,  confront  commercial  freedom,  become  more  moral 
as  well  as  happier,  and  emancipation  thus  keep  all  its 
promises. 

Slavery,  alas  !  keeps  all  its  promises  also. 
In  Cuba,  amidst  an  exceptional  prosperity,  the  causes  of 
which  we  shall  analyze,  the  gross  profits  do  not  liquidate 
the  debts  ;  the  presence  of  a  strong  power  does  not  preserve 
the  laws  ;  the  reign  of  a  uniform  religion  does  not  purify 
morals  ;  the  great  number  of  slaves  does  not  secure  the  pro 
gress  of  the  population  ;  the  mildness  of  the  relation  does 
not  prevent  insurrections  ;  the  facility  of  redemption  does 
not  advance  liberty. 

The  same  embarrassments,  the  same  results,  are  found  in 
the  well-managed  colonies  of  prudent  Holland. 

But  it  is  in  the  United  States,  above  all,  that  facts  demol 
ish  the  systems  of  the  partisans  of  servitude. 

In  the  United  States,  strange  moralists  affirm  that  slavery 
elevates  the  intelligence  of  the  possessing  race,  and,  freeing 
it  from  all  cares,  devotes  it  to  the  pursuit  of  noble  mental 
labors,  communicates  to  it  the  governing  qualities,  and  ex 
pands  the  heart,  constantly  moved  by  the  spectacle  of 
weak  and  imperfect  beings,  whilst,  discharging  society 
from  the  burden  of  these  weak  beings,  it  places  them 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

• 

under  the  patronage  of  the  best  citizens,  who  rear,  guide, 
and  assist  them  ;  a  beneficent  and  productive  organization, 
superior  to  every  combination,  of  relations  between  rich 
and  poor  presented  in  the  history  of  the  world  !  Experi 
ence,  pitiless  experience,  replies,  that  the  master  becomes 
hard,  indolent,  and  sensual ;  that  the  habit  of  command  takes 
away  all  cordiality  even  towards  free  working-men ;  that  it 
leads  to  confounding  in  the  same  contempt  the  labor  and 
the  laborer  ;  that  the  plus  value  of  lands  cultivated  by  free 
labor  exceeds  the  capital  represented  by  slaves  ;  that  the 
human  intellect  is  developed  only  through  activity, — that 
passive,  it  slumbers,  —  constrained,  it  becomes  soured  or 
degraded.  In  a  word,  in  this  detestable  system,  the  owner 
becomes  a  beast  of  prey,  the  owned  a  beast  of  burden,  the 
master  is  without  calculation,  the  workman  without  pro 
gress  ;  time,  far  from  ameliorating  this  position,  aggravates 
it ;  with  time,  instruction,  the  pretext  of  slavery,  is  inter 
dicted  by  law ;  affranchisement,  the  hope  of  the  slave,  is 
interdicted  by  law  ;  the  separation  of  classes  widens  and 
becomes  envenomed  ;  prejudice,  created  by  slavery,  sur 
vives  it  to  the  degree  that  the  North  refuses  equality  to 
the  black,  while  the  South  refuses  him  liberty ;  the  pretended 
political  superiority  of  the  South  is  only  the  unanimous  and 
persevering  resolution  to  sacrifice  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  peculiar  institution,  everything,  even  honor,  even  peace, 
even  country.  The  sacrifice  is  made,  the  war  declared,  — 
not  a  war  between  slave  and  master,  but"  between  whites, 
between  brethren,  between  fellow-citizens,  —  war  against 
justice  and  nature,  —  civil  war! 

Servitude  is  a  poisoned  river,  flowing  into  evil  from  which 
it  takes  its  rise.  Whilst  its  fatal  consequences  are  rending 
America,  another  continent,  Africa,  suffers  from  its  criminal 
origin. 

The  efforts  of  England  and  France  to  abolish  the  slave- 
trade  have  been  persevering  and  prodigious. 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

International  treaties  ;  special  laws  by  each  country  ; 
agreements  with  the  native  chiefs  ;  establishment  of  offices 
and  stations  ;  enlistment  of  free  laborers  ;  correspondence 
with  ambassadors  and  consuls  ;  decisions  of  courts  and 
mixed  commissions  established  by  treaties  ;  —  such  is  the 
part  of  politics,  diplomacy,  and  justice. 

The  exercise  of  the  mutual  right  of  search  ;  systems  of 
permanent  cruising  ;  seizures  and  confiscations  ;  military 
expeditions  ;  —  such  is  the  part  of  the  navy. 

Incontestable  facts  prove  that  immense  results  have  been 
obtained,  and  that  the  law  which  prohibits  the  slave-trade 
has  not,  as  foretold  by  the  traveller  Jacquemont,*  con 
demned  the  colonies  to  perish.  The  principal  result  has 
been  the  rise  in  price  of  servile  labor,  which  by  degrees, 
producing  less  than  free  labor,  is  coming  to  cost  more. 
The  day  when  this  result  shall  be  evident  will  be  the  last 
of  slavery.  Until  this  time,  so  long  as  it  shall  live,  the 
slave-trade  will  not  be  dead,  and  a  most  legitimate,  most 
desirable  operation,  the  engagement  of  free  blacks  for  the 
European  colonies,  will  remain  equivocal  and  dangerous. 
It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  destroy  the  slave-trade,  to  abol 
ish,  or  at  least  diminish,  two  evils,  —  slavery  in  America, 
barbarism  in  Africa. 

The  frightful  state  of  an  entire  continent,  condemned 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  be  never  civilized, 
never  free,  never  elevated  to  the  love  of  labor  and  of  the 
arts,  reduced  beneath  the  level  of  all  the  others,  destined 
to  furnish  negro  slaves  to  the  rest  of  the  earth,  as  a  mine 
produces  charcoal,  —  such  is  the  first  and  last  consequence 
of  slavery.  By  degrees,  commerce  teaches  the  chiefs  that 
it  is  more  profitable  to  employ  men  than  to  sell  them  ;  trav 
ellers  teach  Europe  what  incalculable  wealth  and  abundant 
population  have  fallen  on  this  continent  from  the  hands  of 
the  Creator  ;  missionaries,  striving  to  efface  the  traces  of 

*   Correspondance,  Vol.  I. 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

blood  and  scandal  spread  by  Christians,  plant  the  cross 
on  these  dreaded  shores.  Europe  is  beginning  to  pay  its 
debt.  It  ends  where  it  should  have  begun  ;  instead  of  ex 
ploiting  Africa,  it  thinks  of  exploring  and  civilizing  it. 
Perhaps  the  following  century,  happier  than  our  own  and 
succeeding  to  its  labors,  will  witness  the  re-establishment 
between  Africa  and  better  known  and  analogous  climates 
of  those  systematic  and  free  migrations  of  inhabitants 
and  products  which  people  the  world  and  mingle  men, 
obedient  to  the  laws  of  Providence,  the  inevitable  course 
of  which  may  be  suspended  by  their  faults,  but  not  forever 
checked. 

Two  of  these  august  laws  are  evolved  from  these  com 
plicated  and  distant  facts,  —  the  great  law  of  solidarity 
among  men,  the  great  law  of  the  fundamental  harmony 
of  interests  with  duties. 

The  memorable  example  given  by  England  and  France 
honors  all  humanity  ;  the  obstinacy  of  America  and  Spain 
dishonors  it ; — here  is  moral  solidarity.  The  slavery  in  these 
nations  threatens,  by  unequal  competition,  the  prosperity 
of  our  colonies  ;  it  eternizes  the  slave-trade  ;  it  fetters  reg 
ular  emigration  ;  it  exposes  Europe,  through  the  reaction 
of  the  crises  which  it  excites,  to  formidable  misfortunes  ;  it 
perpetuates  the  degradation  of  Africa  ;  nothing  is  done 
when  all  is  not  done  ;  —  here  is  material  solidarity. 

It  was  once  exclaimed,  "  Perish  the  colonies,  rather  than 
a  principle  ! " 

The  principle  has  not  perished,  the  colonies  have  not 
perished. 

It  is  not  correct  that  interests  should  yield  to  principles  ; 
between  legitimate  interests  arid  true  principles,  harmony 
is  infallible  ;  this  is  truth.  Those  who  look  only  to  in 
terests  are  sooner  or  later  deceived  in  their  calculations ; 
those  who,  exclusively  occupied  with  principles,  are  gen 
erous  without  being  practical,  cease  to  be  generous,  for 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

they  lead  the  cause  which  they  serve  to  certain  destruc 
tion.  It  is  the  will  of  God  that  realities  should  mingle  with 
ideas,  and  that  material  obstacles  should  compel  the  pur 
chase  of  progress  by  toil.  Let  us  not  be  surprised,  there 
fore,  behind  every  moral  question  to  encounter  a  question 
of  budget  and  tariff,  nor  indignant  if  the  arguments  of 
philosophers  seem  checked  by  sugar  or  cotton. 

An  obscure  workman  of  the  United  States  has  effected 
more  against  the  slaves,  by  the  invention  of  a  machine  for 
picking  cotton,  than  all  the  slave-traders.  Cotton  in  Amer 
ica  is  slavery  ;  cotton  in  Africa  would  perhaps  be  liberty ; 
slavery  will  cease  when  we  go  to  buy  things  where  we 
are  accustomed  to  buy  persons,  and  the  progress  of  the 
culture  of  peanuts  and  the  traffic  in  palm-oil  on  the  coast 
of  Africa  will  do  more  for  emancipation,  than  numerous 
meetings,  speeches,  and  works  like  mine.  Speeches  and 
books  are  efficacious  in  their  turn  ;  while  arousing  in  the 
soul  respect  for  eternal  principles,  they  may  at  the  same 
time  establish,  by  certain  facts,  that,  while  the  evils  of 
slavery  have  surpassed  everything  foretold  by  the  most 
sinister  predictions,  even  the  material  advantages  of  eman 
cipation  have  risen  in  sPfew  years  above  all  that  the  most 
partial  hopes  had  conceived  for  them. 

Before  this  glorious  conclusion,  interest,  the  last  but 
solid  rampart  of  the  peoples  not  yet  persuaded  by  religion 
and  reason,  crumbles  to  dust.  France  and  England  have 
not  to  repent ;  science  and  morality  have  not  to  bow  their 
heads  ;  the  lowest  race  of  men  has  not  lost  the  inheritance 
of  freedom  ;  slavery  is  not  a  necessary  evil ;  always  cen 
surable,  it  ends  by  not  being  even  useful.  Once  more,  it 
remains  proven  that  God  has  established  unison  between 
all  things,  that  the  science  of  political  economy  holds  the 
same  language  as  morality,  and  that  a  steadfast  harmony 
intertwines  with  the  phenomena  of  the  world  of  matter  the 
sublime  laws  of  the  moral  world. 


22  INTRODUCTION. 


IY. 


These  conclusions,  Monsieur  le  Due,  will  indicate  to 
you  the  spirit  of  this  work. 

I  owe  to  Christianity  the  horror  with  which  slavery 
inspires  me.  My  work  would  have  seemed  incomplete 
to  me,  therefore,  had  I  not  concluded  it  by  a  chapter  on 
Christianity  and  Slavery,  designed  to  demonstrate  in  the 
sequel,  and  by  the  aid  of  so  many  learned  writings,  not 
that  Christianity  has  destroyed  slavery  by  itself  alone, 
but  that  it  would  not  have  been,  will  not  be,  abolished 
without,  it. 

Let  those  who  speak,  let  those  who  write,  never  forget 
that  emancipation  in  the  nineteenth  century  was  and  will 
be  the  work  of  the  Gospel,  the  rostrum,  and  the  press. 

The  power  of  evil  in  this  world  is  formidable.  Centuries 
after  centuries  pass  over  China  and  India  without  shaking 
their  empire.  But,  thanks  to  Christianity,  the  conscience 
knows  how  to  listen  ;  thanks  to  liberty,  the  conscience  can 
speak.  Under  the  reign  of  this  holy  alliance,  evil  is  not 
easily  surmounted,  but  it  is  unceasingly  restless,  it  is  for 
bidden  to  make  itself  a  tranquil  domain  in  the  bosom  of  a 
regular  community. 

In  1773,  ten  years  after  the  odious  treaty  of  1763,  which 
secured  to  England  the  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade,  Wil 
liam  Wilberforce,  then  on  the  benches  of  the  school  at 
Poklington,*  wrote  for  the  first  time  against  this  infamous 
traffic,  the  very  name  of  which  was  an  English  word,f  and 
which  a  council  held  in  the  city  of  London  in  1102,  under 
the  presidency  of  St.  Anselm,  had  interdicted  eight  hundred 
years  before  the  same  object  was  debated  in  the  same  city 

*  The  Life  of  William  Wilberforce,  by  his  Sons  Robert  and  Samuel.    Lon 
don:  Murray.    1838. 
f   Traite,  from  Trade. 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

before  Parliament.*  In  1780,  Thomas  Clarkson  proposed 
to  abolish  the  slave-trade.  In  1787,  Wilberforce  renewed 
the  proposition.  Seven  times  presented  from  1793  to  1799, 
the  bill  seven  times  failed.  Successively  laid  over,  it  tri 
umphed  at  length  in  1806  and  1807.  All  the  Christian 
nations  followed  this  memorable  example.  At  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  all  the  powers  pledged  themselves  to  unite  their 
efforts  to  obtain  the  entire  and  final  abolition  of  a  traffic  so 
odious  and  so  loudly  reproved  by  the  laws  of  religion  and 
nature.-\  The  slave-trade  was  abolished  in  1808  by  the 
Northern  United  States  ;  in  1811,  by  Denmark,  Portugal, 
and  Chili ;  in  1813,  by  Sweden  ;  in  1814  and  1815,  by  Hol 
land  ;  in  1815,  by  France  ;  in  1822,  by  Spain.  In  this  same 
year,  1822,  Wilberforce  attacked  slavery  after  the  slave- 
trade,  and  won  over  public  opinion  by  appeals  and  repeated 
meetings,  while  his  friend  Mr.  Buxton  proposed  emancipa 
tion  in  Parliament.  The  Emancipation  Bill  was  presented 
in  1833.  On  the  1st  of  August,  1834,  slavery  ceased  to  sully 
the  soil  of  the  English  colonies.  In  1846,  Sweden,  in  1847, 
Denmark,  Uruguay,  Wallachia,  and  Tunis,  obeyed  the  same 
impulse,  which  France  followed  in  1848,  Portugal  in  1856, 
and  which  Holland  promised  to  imitate  in  1860.  An  earnest 
movement  agitated  Brazil. 

Lastly,  in  1861,  the  last  form  of  servitude  disappeared 
in  Russia ;  Spain,  in  retaking  a  part  of  the  island  of  St. 
Domingo,  promised  never  to  re-establish  slavery  there,  and 
the  antislavery  cause  obtained  the  majority  in  the  general 
elections  which  raised  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States. 

In  a  century,  the  initiative  of  Wilberforce  has  put  slavery 
to  rout,  or  at  least  called  it  in  question  over  the  whole 
surface  of  Christianity. 

*  Remusat,  Vie  de  Saint-Anselme,  p.  163.        • 

t  Declaration  of  February  4, 1815,  and  additional  article  of  the  agreement  of 
November  20.  1815. 


24  INTRODUCTION. 

The  destinies  of  servitude  and  liberty  are  at  once  at 
stake  in  the  crisis  which  is  shaking  the  New  World.  This 
combat  is  the  rudest  of  all,  but  it  will  be  the  last.  Instead 
of  suffering  one's  self  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  incon 
ceivable  slowness  of  moral  progress,  it  is  precisely  because 
the  last  effort  is  difficult  that  it  is  necessary  to  enter  into 
it  with  all  one's  might,  full  of  faith  in  the  sure  triumph  of 
the  Christian  religion,  justice,  and  perseverance  over  the 
conspiracy  of  interests,  the  obstinacy  of  prejudices,  the 
despotic  torpor  of  habits.  When  Wilberforce  begun,  the 
struggle  was  less  advanced  and  the  cause  more  desperate. 

So  memorable  an  example  is  worthy  forever  to  strengthen 
perseverance.  The  most  obscure  of  men  has  his  duty,  and 
'this  is  my  excuse  for  associating  with  great  minds  in  send 
ing  forth  a  protest  against  evil,  as  a  child  does  his  duty  in 
joining  with  strong  men  to  cast  a  drop  of  water  upon  a 
conflagration. 

"  The  eternal  laws  bind  us  to  take  the  side  of  the 
injured.  On  this  point  we  have  no  liberty.  To  embody 
and  express  this  great  truth  is  in  every  man's  power,  and 
thus  every  man  can  do  something  to  break  the  chain  of 
slavery."  * 

You,  Monsieur  le  Due,  have  comprehended  this  duty  ; 
be  pleased  to  permit  me  to  dedicate  and  refer  to  you  the 
humble  enterprise  undertaken  to  follow  the  example  which 
you  have  set  me. 

AUGUSTIN  COCHIN. 

*  Charming. 


BOOK    FIRST. 

FRENCH    COLONIES. 
CHAPTER    I. 

EMANCIPATION  BY  THE  CONVENTION,  AND  THE  RE-ESTABLISH 
MENT   OF   SLAVERY  BY  THE   CONSULATE. 

1794-1802. 

THE  history  of  the  French  colonies  is  well  known,  yet  it 
is  so  sad  that  we  would  gladly  forget  it.  But  the  wrecks 
remain  to  us  of  our  ancient  splendor.  The  war  of  the 
Spanish  Succession  cost  us  Canada,  Newfoundland,  Aca- 
dia,  and  Hudson's  Bay  (1713)  ;  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
Louisiana  (1763),  far  an  instant  retroceded  to  France  (1800), 
then  sold  by  her  (1803)  ;  the  Revolution  cost  us  St.  Do 
mingo  ;  the  wars  against  Europe,  St.  Lucia,  Tobago,  the 
Sechelles,  the  Isle  of  France,  and  the  territory  of  our  East 
Indian  possessions. 

Since  its  occupation  (1635),  Martinico  has  been  ceded  to 
two  companies  ;  taken  in  1762,  surrendered  in  1763  ;  taken 
in  1794,  surrendered  in  1802;  taken  in  1807,  retaken  in 
1815.  Guadaloupe  has  passed  through  the  hands  of  three 
companies  (1626  - 1642)  ;  was  sold  for  sixty  thousand  livres, 
Tours  currency,  and  a  rent  of  six  hundred  pounds  of  sugar, 
to  the  Marquis  de  Boisseret,  redeemed  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  livres  by  Colbert ;  attacked  unsuccess 
fully  three  times  by  the  English  (1666,  1691,  1703)  ;  taken 
in  1759,  surrendered  in  1763  ;  retaken  in  1794,  and  erelong 
valiantly  recovered ;  lost  anew  in  1810,  ceded  to  Sweden 


26  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

in  1813,  surrendered  in  1814,  retaken  in  1815.  More  fortu 
nate,  Bourbon,  remaining  a  century  in  the  hands  of  the  East 
India  Company,  then  reunited  to  the  state  (1767),  succeed 
ed  in  governing  itself  independently  during  the  Revolution, 
but  was  taken  "in  1810  with  Mauritius,  and  surrendered 
alone  in  1815. 

Since  this  epoch,  since  the  moment  when  the  mother 
country  regained  on  the  same  day  liberty  and  peace,  a 
better  directed  anxiety  for  the  national  greatness,  a  more 
eager  emulation  of  foreign  strength,  the  living  power  of 
complaints  borne  by  the  press  and  rostrum  to  the  ear  of 
kings,  Imve  contributed,  no  less  than  the  development  of 
means  of  communication  and  the  progress  of  the  navy,  to 
restore  to  the  colonies  some  degree  of  favor  and  prosperity. 
We  owe  to  the  constitutional  government  Algeria,  the  fair 
est  province  of  the  world  ;  we  owe  to  it  our  possessions  of 
the  Mozambique  Channel,  Mayotte,  Nossi-be,  and  St.  Mary 
of  Madagascar,  and  those  of  Oceanica,  Tahiti,  the  Mar 
quesas,  and  New  Caledonia,  points  useful  for  our  stations, 
exchanges,  and  missions.  The  continuance  of  the  same 
policy  will  procure  us  the  occupation  of  Touranne  and 
Saigon  in  the  empire  of  Annam,  and  the  consolidation 
of  our  power  in  Senegal.  We  are  lastly  indebted  to  the 
same  regime  for  a  series  of  measures  which  have  developed 
what  remains  to  us  of  our  American  colonies,  Martinico, 
Guadeloupe,  Guiana,  and  the  beautiful  African  colony,  the 
Isle  of  Bourbon,  to  which  is  left,  without  reason,  the  in 
exact  and  insignificant  name  Eeunion. 

Despite  all  this  progress,  our  maritime  possessions  are 
trifling.  England  possesses  thirty-seven  colonies,  without 
counting  the  East  Indies,  inhabited  by  nearly  4,000,000 
subjects.  France,  Algeria  apart,  possesses  fourteen  colo 
nies  and  fourteen  secondary  stations,  occupied,  over  an 
extent  of  less  than  250,000,000  acres,  by  less  than  600,000 
inhabitants,  — in  all,  the  territory  of  three  great  departments 
and  the  population  of  three  small  ones. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  27 

The  internal  history  of  these  possessions  offers  a  no  less 
mournful  aspect  than  the  annals  of  their  conquests.  The 
colonial  theory  is  beautiful,  —  daughters  of  the  greatest 
nations,  fulcrums  of  their  influence,  entrepots  of  universal 
commerce,  landmarks  of  civilization  planted  in  the  bosom 
of  the  seas,  scattered  beacons  of  religion  and  progress, 
the  modern  colonies,  the  stations  of  our  fleets,  are  them 
selves,  as  it  were,  fleets  at  anchor,  displaying  to  the 
farthest  limits  of  the  world  tbe  flag  of  Europe  and  the 
standard  of  Christianity  !  Alas  !  facts  do  not  faithfully 
reproduce  this  enchanting  vision  of  the  political  mind. 
At  the  origin  of  the  colonies  we  find,  in  general,  two 
men, — a  filibuster  and  a  missionary.  To  go  so  far,  one 
must  either  have  the  Devil  in  his  body  or  God  in  his  heart. 
When  to  these  two  men  is  joined  a  third,  —  a  ruler,  —  all 
goes  well  ;  the  first  subjugates,  the  second  converts,  the 
third  organizes.  But  this  organizer  may  be  long  in  coming. 
Thus,  the  beginning  of  settlements  is  a  mixture  of  heroism 
and  disorder,  of  sublime  devotion  and  savage  cupidity.  A 
heroic  navigator  was  D'Enambuc,  a  younger  son  of  Picardy, 
who  was  the  founder  of  the  colonization  of  the  Antilles. 
A  brave  soldier  was  Captain  1'Olive,  who,  with  -M.  du 
Plessis,  in  1633,  demanded  of  the  Lords  of  the  West  India 
Company  a  commission  to  occupy  Guadaloupe.  But  it  is 
well  known  with  what  barbarity,  after  the  death  of  his 
companion,  he  fell  upon  the  peaceful  Caribs,  declaring 
against  them,  says  the  unpublished  account  of  a  mis 
sionary,*  a  war  as  unjust  as  shameful,  and  thus  hindering  our 
principal  design,  ivhich  was  no  other  than  the  promulgation 
of  the  Gospel  and  the  education  of  this  poor  people.  A  saint 
was  this  Father  Raymond,  a  Dominican  like  Las  Casas, 
who  did  his  best  to  thwart  this  detestable  design,  and  finally 

*  A  curious  MS.  purchased  by  the  author  at  the  sale  of  the  Erdevin  Collec 
tion,  pp.  32,  40.  See  also  the  Histoire  generate  des  Antilles,  by  the  Kev.  Father 
du  Tertre,  of  the  Freres-Precheurs,  1654. 


28  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

so  far  won  over  H.  V  Olive  that  he  promised,  and  even  swore, 
to  do  no  harm  to  the  savages  unless  he  were  first  set  upon ; 
then,  seeing  himself  deceived,  went  to  find  the  governor,  and 
to  insist  with  him,  with  a  zeal  that  was  not  relished,  that  it  was 
no  more  lawful  to  make  war  without  reason  on  a  free  nation, 
than  to  wrest  its  property  from  it  unjustly.  But  the  soldier 
triumphed  over  the  missionary. 

The  extermination  of  the  natives  is  almost  everywhere 
the  first  page  of  colonial  occupation.  The  rapacious  ex 
ploitation  of  the  soil  by  the  occupants,  by  companies,  and 
by  governors,  is  generally  the  second  page. 

Happy  these  distant  possessions,  when  the  mother 
country  does  not  exploit  them  in  turn,  like  ar  selfish  owner 
of  distant  estates,  who  extracts  from  them  all  he  can, 
complains  of  what  they  cost,  and  is  represented  thereon 
by  a  relentless  steward  ;  happy  when  they  receive  a  ver 
itable  administrator,  such  as  were  M.  de  Poincy  at  the 
Antilles,  M.  de  la  Bourdonnaye,  M.  Poivre,  and  M.  Desbas- 
sayns  de  Richemont  at  Bourbon,  M.  de  la  Barre  and  M. 
Malouet  at  Guiana,  with  humane  and  intelligent  inhabit 
ants  !  *  But  the  greater  part  come  so  far  from  home  only 
to  make  a  fortune  at  any  price.  Thus  we  see  the  colonies, 
by  the  side  of  respectable  and  intelligent  families,  serve 
as  nests  for  corsairs  enriched  by  rapine,  or  as  prisons 
without  walls,  —  for  centuries  detestable  manufactories  for 
the  production  of  tobacco,  cotton,  and  sugar,  and  the  con 
sumption  of  slaves. 

Like  England,  Holland,  Spain,  and  Portugal,  like  all 
nations,  almost  as  soon  as  she  had  colonies,  France  had 
slaves.  Like  all  nations,  she  kept  up  the  supply  by  the 
infamous  practice  of  the  slave-trade.  This  traffic  was 
not  only  tolerated,  but  favored,  encouraged,  sanctioned 
by  treaties.  On  the  27th  of  August,  1101,  his  Host 
Christian  Majesty  received  from  his  Host  Catholic  Majesty 

*  Archives  of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  29 

the  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade  for  ten  years,  and  both 
sovereigns  took  a  personal  interest  of  one  fourth  in  the 
business.  In  1784,  a  premium  was  accorded  to  the  slave- 
trade  by  an  order  of  the  Council. 

Let  us  pass  quickly  over  these  shameful  details,  and  over 
the  history  of  slavery  in  the  French  colonies,  since  it  is 
abolished,  since  good  has  triumphed  over  evil.  Humanity, 
which,  without  greatly  advancing,  marches  onward  with 
rapid  strides,  does  not  willingly  pause  at  details  ;  when  a 
degree  of  progress  is  accomplished,  it  closes  the  account, 
-as  it  were,  and  passes  on  to  a  new  chapter.  It  looks  at 
results,  rather  than*  means ;  thus  too  often  causing  the 
unjust  popularity  of  despots,  and  the  false  greatness  of 
powers  judged  from  a  distance.  To  mankind,  the  mis 
sionary  and  the  slave-trader  repose  in  the  bosom  of  equal 
oblivion.  Doubtless,  humanity  needs  to  believe  that  crime 
and  virtue  have  received  their  wages ;  but,  knowing  that 
this  distribution  is  not  intrusted  to  its  hands,  it  forgets, 
and  passes  on.  History,  like  all  sciences,  supposes  God ; 
without  God,  it  would  have  no  conclusion,  no  morality. 
In  its  eyes  nothing  is  small,  nothing  forgotten.  It  knows, 
it  has  seen,  it  has  numbered  on  the  African  coasts,  under 
the  decks  of  ships,  behind  silent  walls,  the  crimes  of  the 
trader,  the  tears  of  the  slave,  the  severities  of  the  master, 
as  well  as  the  prayers  of  unknown  souls,  the  paternal 
kindness  of  numerous  masters,  the  zeal  of  an  obscure 
missionary,  the  outcry  of  a  free  conscience,  the  gift  of  a 
generous  heart,  the  humble  labor  of  the  writer,  the  coura 
geous  perseverance  of  the  statesman. 

Let  us  leave  the  whole  past  of  this  lamentable  history 
with  God,  and  recount  only  the  event  which  concluded, 
and  the  consequences  which  survive  it. 

The  first  laws  in  Europe  which  assailed  slavery  came 
from  France;  they  were  the  work  of  the  Revolution,*  —  a 

*  Noble  examples  were  given  before  these  laws.    In  1785,  General  Lafayette 


30  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

work  which  bears  the  mark  of  the  greater  part  of  the  acts 
of  this  period ;  a  work  at  first  too  long  deferred,  then 
too  much  precipitated ;  the  decree  of  justice  executed  by 
violence. 

The  Constituent  Assembly  dared  do  nothing,  the  Legis 
lative  Assembly  could  do  nothing,  the  Convention  risked 
everything  ;  *  the  timidity  of  the  first  was  as  disastrous  as 
the  ardor  of  the  last.  The  colonies  received  from  the 
mother  country  their  destinies  ready  made  ;  too  great  in 
decision  or  too  great  violence  were  translated  there  into 
like  calamities. 

Before  slavery,  the  Constituent  Assembly,  so  abundant, 
moreover,  in  noble  souls  burning  for  justice,  only  recoiled 
as  from  an  abyss.  It  feared  to  meddle  with  these  strange, 
far-off  communities,  which  were  spoken  of  only  with  terror. 
To  hear  Maloueljt,  Maury,  and  Barnave,  freedom  was  civil 
war,  with  the  skin  for  cockade ;  it  was,  through  the  defeat 
of  the  white  race,  the  disruption  of  the  tie  which  united 
the  colonies  to  the  mother  country.  Divided  between 
justice  and  fear,  the  Assembly  decided  by  a  decree,  March 
8,  1790,  and  instructions,  March  28,  that  the  colonies 
should  continue  to  live  under  the  regime  of  special  laws, 
and  should  make  known  their  voice  by  the  organ  of  the 
Colonial  Assemblies,  to  which  alone  belonged  the  initiative 
of  laws  concerning  the  condition  of  persons.  Article  4  of 
the  instructions  reads  :  — 

11  All  persons,  who  have  attained  the  full  age  of  twenty- 
five,  owners  of  real  estate,  or,  in  default  of  such  property, 
domiciliated  for  two  years  in  the  parish,  and  subject  to 

sent  a  M.  dc  Richepray  to  Cayenne  to  purchase  an  estate  and  divide  it  among 
the  negroes,  for  which  purpose  he  conferred  with  the  missionaries  of  Saint- 
Esprit.  A  letter  from  the  Marshal  de  Castries,  dated  June  6,  1785,  proves  that 
Louis  XVI.  ordered  similar  experiments. 

*  See  the  excellent  work  published  in  the  Revue  coloniale,  1850,  Tom.  IV. 
Series  II.  p.  149.  under  the  title,  Les  Colonies  et  Ics  Assemblies  de  la  Revolution 
(1789-1802),  by  M.  Maurel-Dupeyre". 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  31 

taxation,  will  unite  to  form  the  parish  assembly."    This  was 
Btyled  the  Colonial  Assembly. 

Abb<$  Gregoire  asked  whether  the  words  all  persons  in 
cluded  persons  of  color.  Charles  de  Lameth  hastened  to 
urge  the  Assembly  to  close  the  debate  on  this  indiscreet 
interrogation,  which  was  done. 

Bloody  disturbances  in  the  colonies  were  the  result  of 
this  ambiguity,  which  the  whites  interpreted  against  the 
free  negroes,  and  which  the  latter  invoked  in  their  favor. 
The  Assembly  was  troubled.  In  the  name  of  the  com 
mittee  of  the  colonists,  Barnave  proposed  that  a  Congress 
of  twenty-nine  Commissioners,  appointed  by  the  Colonial 
Assembly,  should  meet  in  the  little  island  of  St.  Martin 
to  settle  the  question.  f  This  was  to  remit  the  rights  of 
the  blacks  to  the  decision  of  a  congress  of  whites.  From 
this  incidental  proposition  sprung  a  passionate  discussion, 
which  lasted  three  days.  Before  closing,  under  the  influ 
ence  of  a  speech  of  the  Abbe  Maury,  which  dimly  predicted 
the  loss  of  the  colonies  on  the  day  that  the  domination  of 
the  whites  should  cease,  the  Assembly  decreed  the  follow 
ing  article  :  — 

"  The  Assembly  decrees,  as  a  constitutional  article,  that 
no  law  on  the  condition  of  persons  not  free  may  be  made 
for  the  colonies,  except  on  the  formal  and  spontaneous  de 
mand  of  the  Colonial  Assemblies." 

Moreau  de  Saint-Mery,  deputy  from  Martinico,  proposed 
to  say  clearly,  the  condition  of  slaves  ;  Robespierre  op 
posed  it ;  the  Assembly  hesitated  between  cultivators,  those 
charged,  with  culture,  and  those  employed  in  culture,  then  re 
turned  to  the  words,  persons  not  free. 

A  like  silence  had  disarmed,  four  years  before,  upon 
another  continent,  the  scruples  of  the  framers  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States.  They  dared  not  say  that 
there  were  no  slaves,  and  they  dared  not  say  that  there 
should  be  none  thenceforth.  They  abolished  the  word, 
they  did  not  abolish  tho  thing. 


32  THE  FKENCH  COLONIES. 

Reassured,  the  Constituent  Assembly  resumed  the  de 
liberation  on  the  rights  of  free  men  of  color,  and,  after 
several  days,  adopted,  May  15,  1791,  the  following  ar 
ticle  :  — 

"  The  Assembly  decrees  that  it  shall  never  deliberate 
on  the  condition  of  persons  of  color,  which  have  not  been 
born  of  free  parents  on  both  sides,  without  the  preliminary, 

free,  and  spontaneous  petition  of  the  colonies ; but 

that  persons  of  color,  born  of  free  parents  on  both  sides, 
shall  be  admitted  into  all  the  future  parish  and  colonial  as 
semblies,  if  they  possess  the  requisite  conditions  besides." 
At  St.  Domingo  the  whites  resisted  ;  at  Paris  the  deputies 
of  the  colonies  declared  that  they  would  thenceforth  absent 
themselves,  and  that  the  decree  qf  March  8,  1790,  was 
violated.  The  Assembly,  troubled  at  its  decision,  decreed 
that  it  should  be  explained  by  instructions,  and  these  in 
structions,  framed  by  the  Duke  de  Nemours,  with  cowardly 
and  hypocritical  timidity,  declared  that  the  decree  of  May 
15,  far  from  violating  that  of  March  8,  restricted  its  appli 
cation  to  men  of  color  born  of  free  parents  on  both  sides. 
The  instructions  were  adopted  on  the  29th  of  May,  and 
were  despatched  to  bear  to  the  colonies  the  wishes  of  the 
mother  country  and  civil  war.  They  were  destined  to  cost 
France  St.  Domingo.* 

*  Hostilities  commenced  anew.  In  1792,  the  Convention  put  in  force  the  de 
cree  of  May  15,  1791,  and  sent  the  Commissioners  Santhonax  and  Polverel  to 
St.  Domingo.  The  island  was  stained  with  blood  in  1790,  1791,  and  1792,  by 
reason  of  the  conflict  between  the  whites  and  the  free  colored  men,  aided  on 
both  sides  by  their  slaves,  but  before  there  had  been  any  question  of  freeing 
these  last.  It  was  to  prevent  the  effervescence  from  drawing  in  the  slaves,  it 
was  to  re-establish  tranquillity,  that  Polverel  determined  to  announce  emancipa 
tion  by  a  proclamation,  Oct.  30,^793.  This  was  confirmed  by  the  decree  of  1794. 
No  excesses  thence  resulted  during  the  years  1795  and  1796,  nor  from  1796  to 
1802,  under  the  strict  and  intelligent  administration  of  Toussaint  1'Ouverture. 
(See  the  Memoirs  of  Clarkson  and  Macaulay  on  the  events  in  Hayti.)  Thus  the 
disturbances  in  St.  Domingo  broke  out  from  1790  to  1792,  while  emancipation 
was  not  decreed  there  till  the  end  of  1793 ;  it  is  an  error,  therefore,  to  attribute 
the  disorder  to  the  abolition  of  slavery. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  33 

Five  months  after,  the  Constitution  being  finished,  the 
Constituent  Assembly  turned  its  attention  again  to  the 
colonies,  and  by  the  decree  of  September  24,  1791,  reserved 
to  the  Legislative  Assembly  the  right  of  deciding  exclusively 
on  the  external  regime  of  the  colonies  (Art.  I.),  abrogating 
the  decree  of  May  15,  and  leaving  the  internal  regime  to 
the  Colonial  Assemblies,  the  propositions  of  which  were  to 
be  carried  directly  to  the  Icing  for  sanction,  without  any  an 
terior  decree  having  power  to  throw  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  the  full  exercise  of  the  right  preserved  to  the  Colonial 
Assemblies. 

Strange  arrangement !  by  which  the  Assembly  stripped  it 
self  with  its  own  hands  of  power.  It  had  well  deserved  it. 

But  it  bequeathed,  in  dying,  an  impossible  position  ;  —  to 
the  colonies,  divisions  ;  to  the  Legislative  Assembly,  power- 
lessness  of  intervention.  Happily,  while  this  intolerable 
state  of  things  called  forth  fiery  but  sterile  debates  in  the 
Assembly,  in  the  colonies  a  better  spirit  prevailed,  and, 
January  20,  1192,  a  Congress  of  Commissioners  from  Guada- 
loupe,  Martinico,  St.  Lucia,  and  Mary  Galante  assembled 
at  Port  Royal,  and  resolved  that,  contrary  to  the  last  decree 
of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  men  of  color  should  be  ad 
mitted,  by  the  same  right  as  whites,  into  the  electoral 
assemblies.  The  same  compromise  was  accepted  at  St.  Do 
mingo.  The  Legislative  Assembly  received  the  example 
from  the  colonies,  instead  of  setting  it  them,  and  abrogated 
the  decree  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  by  another  decree, 
March  24,  1792,  which  accorded  political  rights  to  all  free 
colored  men,  without  distinction. 

By  a  law  of  August  11,  1792,  the  Legislative  Assembly 
suppressed  the  premium  accorded,  by  virtue  of  a  decree  of 
the  Council  of  1784,  to  the  negro  slave-trade.  The  Conven 
tion  renewed  this  suppression  by  a  decree,  July  27,  1793, 
rendered  without  opposition,  on  the  proposal  of  Gre"goire. 

But  slavery  still  subsisted  in  the  colonies. 

2*  C 


34  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Not  only  did  slavery  subsist,  but,  far  from  ameliorating 
the  lot  of  the  slave,  the  superior  agents  of  the  Republic 
endeavored  to  stifle  and  extinguish  all  that  might  prepare 
him  to  become  a  freeman.  Read  the  unpublished  instruc 
tions  *  of  the  Captain-General  of  Martinico  and  St.  Lucia, 
dated  at  Fort  de  France,  19th  Brumaire,  Year  II. f 

"  THE  CAPTAIN-GENERAL  OF  MARTINICO  AND  ST.  LUCIA, 

To  the  Commissioner  of  Government  at  the  Court  of  Appeals  in  Session  at  Fort 
de  France. 

"  The  French  government  has  perceived,  Citizen  Com 
missioner,  that  the  philosophical  systems  on  the  necessity 
of  extending  and  generalizing  instruction,  suited,  without 
doubt,  to  the  education  of  a  free  people,  are  incompatible 
with  the  existence  of  our  colonies,  which  reposes  on  slavery 
and  the  distinction  of  color.  In  preserving  to  Martinico 
the  regime  and  laws  of  1189,  it  has  implicitly  proscribed 
everything  that  may  tend  to  overthrow  the  ancient  colo 
nial  organization,  whether  by  physical  force  or  by  public 
opinion.  Now  a  deplorable  experience  has  proved  that  the 
abuse  of  enlightenment  is  often  the  principle  of  revolutions, 
and  that  ignorance  is  a  necessary  bond  for  men  fettered 
by  violence  or  blighted  by  prejudice. 

"  It  would,  therefore,  be  dangerous  imprudence  to  con 
tinue  to  tolerate  in  the  colony  schools  for  negroes  and 
persons  of  color.  What  will  they  learn  in  these  establish 
ments  ?  They  will  not  draw  thence  the  higher  acquirements 
which  make  of  the  enlightened  man  the  most  absolute  slave 
of  the  law  ;  and  their  intellect,  inflated  by  an  imperfect  and 
gross  education,  will  unceasingly  represent  to  them  the 
colonial  regime  as  the  code  of  tyranny  and  oppression. 

*  Communicated  by  M.  Margry,  Keeper  of  the  Colonial  Archives. 

t  The  seal  of  the  document  bears  France  with  a  palm-tree  at  her  side,  behind 
•which  is  the  sun ;  she  is  surrounded  by  divers  attributes,  and  carries  a  balance 
in  her  hand,  one  side  of  which  is  weighed  down. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  35 

"These  ideas,  long  diffused  by  perverse  or  mistaken  men, 
have  sufficed  to  destroy  our  most  flourishing  settlements, 
and  the  wisdom  of  a  reparative  government,  which  watches 
over  the  prosperity  of  Martinico,  cannot  suffer  the  contin 
uance  there  of  a  deceitful  spark,  which  will,  sooner  or  later, 
light  up  the  flames  of  a  revolution. 

"I  have  therefore  judged  it  necessary,  and  I  order  you 
expressly,  citizen  commissioner,  to  close  all  the  public  schools 
in  which  negroes  and  persons  of  color  are  admitted.  I  shall 
inform  the  colonial  prefect  of  the  order  which  I  give  you 
in  this  respect,  and  concert  with  him  on  the  measures  to  be 
taken  to  insure  and  legalize  the  execution. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  salute  you. 

VlLLARET." 

This  most  curious  document  is  dated  the  19th  Brumaire,* 
Year  II.  On  the  16th  Muviosef  of  this  same  year,  almost 
at  the  same  moment,  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  decreed 
in  the  midst  of  the  National  Convention,  by  acclamation, 
but  by  surprise. 

On  the  4th  of  February,  1794  (16th  Pluviose,  Year  II.), 
a  deputy  from  St.  Domingo,  a  colored  man,  came  to  set 
forth  to  the  representatives  of  the  people  the  sufferings  and 
reclamations  of  the  slaves. 

"  I  ask,"  cried  LEVASSEUR  (de  la  Sarthe),  "that  the  Con 
vention,  without  yielding  to  an  impulse  of  enthusiasm, 
however  natural  under  such  circumstances,  but  faithful  to 
the  eternal  principles  of  justice  and  equality  which  it  has 
consecrated,  faithful  to  the  declaration  of  the  rights  of 
man,  decree  from  this  moment  that  slavery  is  abolished 
over  all  the  territory  of  the  Republic/' 

*  The  second  month  of  the  Republican  Calendar,  from  October  25  to  Novem 
ber  21. 

t  The  fifth  month  of  the  Republican  Calendar,  from  January  20  t 
18  or  19. 


36  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

LACROIX  (d'Eure-et-Loire) .  "In  laboring  on  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  French  people,  we  failed  to  cast  our  eyes  on 
the  unhappy  men  of  color  who  are  groaning  in  slavery  in 
America,  and  posterity  may  reproach  us  for  this  forgetful- 
ness,  which,  involuntary  as  it  is,  is  none  the  less  culpable  in 
the  sight  of  philosophy.  It  is  in  vain  to  say  that  we  know 
no  slaves  in  France  ;  is  it  not  true  that  we  leave  in  slavery 
sensible  and  brave  men,  who  have  reconquered  their  rights  ? 
Vainly  shall  we  have  proclaimed  liberty  and  equality,  if 
there  remain  on  the  territory  of  the  Republic  a  single 
man  who  is  not  free  as  the  air  he  breathes,  —  if  there 
remain  a  single  slave  I  Let  us  proclaim  the  liberty  of  men 
of  color ! 

"Let  this  great  example  to  the  universe,  let  this  prin 
ciple,  solemnly  consecrated,  re-echo  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Africans  in  chains  under  English  dominion  ;  let  them  feel 
all  the  dignity  of  their  being,  let  ftiem  arm  themselves  and 
come  to  augment  the  number  of  our  brothers  and  votaries 
of  universal  liberty!" 

Levasseur  attempted  to  proceed  to  enlarge  upon  his  mo 
tion  :  "President,"  exclaimed  Lacroix,  "do  not  suffer  the 
Convention  to  dishonor  itself  by  a  long  discussion." 

Levasseur  asked  that  his  proposition  should  be  put  to 
vote  upon  the  spot. 

The  whole  Assembly  rose,  and  voted  by  acclamation. 

The  President  pronounced  THE  ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY. 

Immediately,  shouts  of  Long  live  the  Republic!  Long  live 
the  National  Convention!  broke  forth  throughout  the  hall. 
The  deputies  from  St.  Domingo  were  led  by  Lacroix  to  the 
President,  who  gave  them  the  fraternal  kiss  in  the  name 
of  all  the  French ;  they  then  received  it  from  each  repre 
sentative.  The  scene  was  repeated  in  the  galleries  ;  the 
colored  citizens  were  embraced  by  their  new  brethren  ; 
tears  of  joy  were  in  every  eye,  Long  live  liberty!  on  every 

HP. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  37 

A  member  requested  that  an  advice-boat  should  be  at 
once  despatched  to  bear  the  happy  news  to  the  colonies. 

D ANTON  rose  :  "  Representatives  of  the  French  people, 
hitherto  we  have  decreed  liberty  only  as  egotists,  for  our 
selves  alone  ;  but  to-day  we  proclaim  it  in  the  face  of  the 
universe,  and  future  generations  will  find  their  glory  in 
this  decree,  —  we  proclaim  universal  liberty.  The  National 
Convention  has  done  its  duty. 

"...  There  exists  between  slavery  ancl  liberty  a  passage, 
delicate  and  difficult  to  leap  over.  It  is  proposed  to  you 
to  send  an  advice-boat,  on  the  spot,  to  make  known  the 
beneficent  law  which  you  have  decreed.  I  oppose  this,  and 
request  that  the  proposition  be  referred  to  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety,  which  will  present  to  you  its  views,  but 
that  the  report  be  made  promptly,  and  that  liberty  be  borne 
to  the  colonies  with  the  means  to  make  it  fruitful 

"  Citizens,  to-day  the  Englishman  is  dead  I  (Loud  ap 
plause.)  Pitt  and  his  plots  are  foiled  !  The  English  behold 
their  commerce  annihilated !  France,  which  to  this  day 
had,  as  it  were,  truncated  her  glory,  at  length  resumes,  in 
the  eyes  of  astonished  and  submissive  Europe,  the  pre 
ponderance  which  is  due  her  through  her  principles,  her 
energy,  her  soil,  and  her  population  !  Activity,  energy, 
generosity  —  but  generosity  directed  by  the  torch  of  reason, 
and  steered  by  the  compass  of  principles,  —  will  insure  you 
forever  the  gratitude  of  posterity." 

LACROIX  proposed  the  following  formula:  — 

The  National  Convention  declares  slavery  abolished  through 
out  all  the  colonies :  consequently  it  decrees  that  all  men, 
without  distinction  of  color,  domiciliated  in  the  colonies,  are 
French  citizens,  and  entitled  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights 
secured  by  the  Constitution. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  for  it  to  report 
unceasingly  on  the  measures  to  be  taken  for  the  execution  of 
the  decree. 


38  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

The  decree  was  unanimously  adopted.* 

Take  away  from  this  page,  torn  from  the  Moniteur,  the 
odious  or  ridiculous  features,  arid  the  emphatic  bad  taste 
habitual  to  the  violent  orators  of  the  Convention  and  the 
whole  epoch,  —  take  away  the  sensible  and  brave  men,  the 
culpable  forgetfulness  in  the  sight  of  philosophy,  the  appeal 
to  arms,  the  votaries  of  universal  liberty,  the  compass  of 
principles  and  torch  of  reason,  —  and  there  remains  in  this 
outburst  of  noble  passions,  mingled  with  grosser  ones,  a 
scene  everywhere  touching  and  grandiose.  I  do  not  say 
grand,  since  God  does  not  appear  therein,  and  since,  when 
the  men  embrace  as  brothers,  they  do  not  see  the  hand  of 
their  common  Father,  or  utter  his  name. 

The  Englishman  is  dead!  exclaimed  Danton.  He  mingled, 
therefore,  a  war-cry  with  an  emotion  of  humanity.  In  fact, 
it  had  been  announced  to  the  Convention  that  the  English 
had  just  possessed  themselves  of  Martinico  and  Guadaloupe, 
a  somewhat  premature  announcement,  for  the  English  at 
tacked  Martinico  on  the  3d  of  February,  the  day  before 
the  session  of  the  Convention,  and  rendered  themselves 
masters  of  it,  bravely  defended  by  General  Rochambeau, 
on  the  22d  of  March ;  and  of  Guadaloupe,  on  the  21st  of 
April,  1794. 

It  is  well  known  that  Martinico  remained  eight  years 
under  English  rule,  until  the  peace  of  Amiens,  in  1802  ;  the 
decree  of  emancipation  was  not  even  introduced  there. 

The  Isle  of  Bourbon  and  Isle  of  France,  on  the  contrary, 
did  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  English  until  1810.  To 
diminish  the  chances  of  disturbance,  the  Colonial  Assembly 
of  Bourbon  had,  from  August  8,  1794,  forbidden  the  intro 
duction  of  negroes  by  the  slave-trade.  The  decree  of  the 
Convention  was  known  at  the  same  epoch,  but  it  was  not 
even  published  ;  and  in  1796,  the  executive  power  of  the 

*  CJioix  de  rapports,  opinions  et  discours  prononces  a  la  tribune  nationale  depuis 
1789,  (Paris,  1821,)  Tom  XIV.  p.  425. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  39 

Republic  having  sent  two  agents,  Citizens  Bacot  and  Bur- 
nel,  to  promulgate  the  decree  of  emancipation,  the  whole 
population  opposed  their  landing.  They  were  no  better 
received  at  Port  Louis  than  at  Bourbon,  and  were  forced  to 
renounce  their  mission  ;  and  for  six  years,  until  the  arrival 
of  General  Decaen  in  the  name  of  the  Consuls  (1803),  the 
two  islands,  with  alternations  of  calmness  and  agitation,  of 
prosperity  and  suffering,  governed  themselves  without  ceas 
ing  to  be  faithful  to  France,*  without  the  whites  having  to 
suffer  any  violence  on  the  part  of  the  blacks,  who  were  or 
ganized  into  companies  designed  to  maintain  order. f  Now, 
to  speak  only  of  Bourbon,  there  were  but  16,000  whites 
against  44,801  blacks. 

Guiana  was  more  unfortunate.  No  attempt  at  coloniza 
tion  had  succeeded  for  two  centuries  in  this  colony,  so  vast 
but  always  deserted,  despite  its  magnificent  elements,  where 
sixteen  thousand  men  inhabited  eighteen  thousand  square 
leagues.  It  had  prospered,  or  at  least  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  hope  of  prosperity,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  under  M.  de  la  Barre,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth,  under  M.  Malouet.  But  since  1178  it  had  lost, 
with  this  able  administrator,  the  best  element  of  an  always 
tardy  future,  when  the  Revolution,  represented  by  a  nephew 
of  Danton,  Jeannet,  threw  its  slaves  into  vagrancy,  its 
priests  into  prison  and  exile,  J  its  proprietors  into  bank 
ruptcy,  and  brought  it,  instead  of  capital,  nothing  but  po 
litical  offenders  condemned  to  deportation.  It  is  again  and 
again  repeated  that  Guiana  was  then  ruined  by  the  aboli- 

*  In  1810  a  party  proposed  to  proclaim  independence  and  demand  protection 
from  the  English.  This  project  was  vigorously  and  triumphantly  combated  by 
a  young  officer  destined  one  day  to  become  President  of  the  Ministerial  Council 
in  France,  M.  Joseph  de  Villele. 

t  Revue  coloniale,  1844,  Tom.  IV.  p.  324,  Notice  by  M.  Voiart;  1846,  Tom. 
VIII.  p.  20,  Notice  by  M.  Pajot;  1858,  Tom.  XX.  p.  47,  Notice  by  M.  Roy. 

J  Memoire  inedit  sur  I'hisloire  des  missions  aux  colonies,  p.  286.  Archives  of 
the  Seminary  du  Saint-Esprit. 


40  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

tion  of  slavery,*  proclaimed  without  circumspection  by 
Jeannet  on  the  day  after  the  arrival  of  the  frigate  that 
brought  the  decree.  The  only  survivor,  in  1834,  of  the  per 
sons  deported  without  trial  on  the  18th  Fructidor,  V.,  the 
Marquis  de  Barbe-Marbois,  has  given  us  the  true  reasons  of 
the  ruin  of  the  colony  in  which  he  then  dwelt  (1797). 

"  All  the  expenses  of  the  government  of  French  Guiana 
were  defrayed  under  the  monarchy  by  funds  sent  annually 

from  France Cayenne  was  beginning  to  shake 

off  her  languor,  when  suddenly  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  checked  this  flight.  France  having  ceased  at  the  same 
epoch  to  pay  the  subsidy,  these  two  causes  concurred  in 
plunging  the  nation  into  distress.  The  colonists  had  re 
nounced  the  labors  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  young 
colonies. "  f 

From  1800  to  1809,  the  colonists  enriched  themselves  as 
corsairs.  In  1809;  Guiana,  attacked  by  an  Anglo-Portu 
guese  expedition,  fell,  and  remained  for  eight  years  in  the 
hands  of  the  Portuguese. 

While  the  blacks  at  Bourbon,  far  from  revolting  in  order 
to  seize  the  liberty  inscribed  in  the  law,  aided  in  the  defence 
of  those  who  concealed  this  law  from  them,  at  Guadaloupe 
they  poured  out  their  blood  for  the  independence  of  the 
national  territory.  On  the  21st  of  April,  1794,  the  English 
took  possession  of  the  island.  On  the  2d  of  June,  the 
agents  of  the  Convention,  Victor  Hugues  and  Pierre  Chrd- 
tien,  appeared  in  sight  of  the  shores  of  Guadaloupe,  with 
two  frigates,  a  brig,  five  transports,  and  twelve  hundred 
men.  Being  able  to  communicate  with  the  land,  they  sent 
forth  the  decree  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  J  with  a  fiery 

*  See  the  testimony  of  M.  Vidal  de  Lingendes,  who  quotes  a  writing  of  M. 
Armand  Aubert,  which  we  have  been  unable  to  find  (Proces-verbaux  de  la  com 
mission  de  1839,  p.  135).  See  also  Observations  sur  la  colonie  de  la  Guyane  et  sur 
les  negres,  by  J.  J.  Ay  me",  ex-legislator,  Hamburg,  1800. 

t  Journal  <Tun  deporte  nonjuge,  Didot,  1834,  Tom.  II.  Chap.  VI.  p.  103. 

\  Revue  coloniale,  1844,  Tom.  II.  p  416;  1850,  2  Series,  Tom.  IV.  p.  164. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  41 

proclamation.  On  the  7th  of  June,  the  slaves  flocked  to 
their  aid,  and,  after  seven  months  of  heroic  struggle,  the 
English  were  forced  to  yield  before  this  fifteenth  army  of 
the  Convention.  The  colony  was  saved,  but  ruined  ;  for 
with  liberty  entered  revolution,*  accompanied  with  all  the 
excesses  produced  by  the  double  intoxication  of  indepen 
dence  and  victory  ;  Pointe-a-Pitre  had  its  revolutionary  tri 
bunal.  When  liberty  has  reached  this  point,  dictatorship 
is  not  far  off,  and  with  it  terror,  violent  absolutism,  and  the 
burden  of  those  innumerable  laws  which  dictatorship  in 
vents  and  multiplies,  without  success,  to  constrain  the  only 
force  which  resists,  and  ends  by  overcoming  it,  — the  force 
of  realities.  Chretien  having  succumbed  to  the  yellow- 
fever,  Hugues,  left  sole  master  of  an  island  blockaded  by 
•the  English,  deserted  by  its  inhabitants,  and  uncultivated, 
heaped  proclamations  upon  proclamations,  ordinances  upon 
ordinances.  The  first  spoke  only  of  liberty  and  happiness  ; 
then  it  became  necessary  to  forbid  thefts  and  the  forcible 
seizure  of  provisions,  under  penalty  of  death  (June  13, 
1794),  to  prescribe  labor  under  the  same  penalty  (June  18), 
to  brigade  the  negroes,  and  man  privateers  with  them  to 
capture  on  the  seas  the  food  which  the  land  no  longer 
produced  ;  yet,  by  these  violent  means,  to  postpone  famine 
without  resuscitating  labor,  and  to  compel  the  labors  of 
these  pretended  freemen  (August  28,  1795).  In  1796,  cul 
tivators  and  culture,  vessels  and  cattle,  were  wellnigh 
annihilated,  and  Victor  Hugues,  his  energy  and  hope  ex 
hausted,  refused  to  proclaim  the  Constitution.  lie  wrote 
(August  9)  a  sad  and  sensible  letter  to  the  Colonial  Min 
ister,  in  which  were  these  words  :  — 

"  What  can  restrain  ninety  thousand  strong,  robust  per- 

*  I  point  out  the  dates  and  principal  facts  without  writing  the  history  of  the 
Revolution  in  the  Colonies.  See  the  remarkable,  complete,  and  curious  work, 
entitled,  Ilistoire  de  la  Guadeloupe,  by  M.  A.  Lacour,  Councillor  of  the  Imperial 
Court,  and  especially  Tom.  II.  Liv.  VI.  Chap.  VI.  (Basse-Terre,  1855  - 1860.) 


42  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

sons,  imbittered  by  long  misfortunes  ?  What  can  hinder 
the  baleful  effects  of  the  ignorance  and  brutishness  into 
which  they  have  been  plunged  by  slavery  ?  Can  three 
thousand  persons,  two  thousand  of  whom  detest  the  present 
state  of  things  as  much  as  the  Republican  government  ? 
The  Constitution,  far  from  being  a  benefit  to  the  colony, 

will  be  its  destruction It  is  only  by  degrees  that 

these  unfortunates  can  be  brought  to  the  state  to  which  the 
government  wishes  to  call  them/' 

A  new  Governor,  General  Desfourneaux,  succeeded  in 
reanimating  labor  by  a  happy  application  of  the  system 
of  renting  the  lands  for  a  portion  of  their  produce  (Order 
of  February  10,  1798),  and  the  institution  of  inspectors  of 
culture.  Replaced  at  the  end  of  the  year  by  divers  agents 
of  the  Directory,  he  left  the  colony  in  a  more  prosperous 
state,  prices  higher,  the  national  property  more  secure,  the 
Constitution  effective.  With  the  Consulate  began  the  regime 
of  military  dictatorship,  preceded  by  the  provisory  govern 
ment  of  an  intelligent  and  firm  colored  man,  Pe'lage  (1801). 
An  insurrection  of  outlaws  and  negroes  *  was  the  occasion 
of  proclaiming  martial  law  in  Guadaloupe.  The  insurgents 
were  judged  by  a  council  of  war.  General  Richepanse  ar 
rived  as  a  conqueror,  took  military  possession  of  the  colony, f 
and  from  the  beginning,  by  reserving  to  the  whites  alone 
the  title  of  citizens  (Order  of  July  16,  1802),  disarming  the 
blacks,  and  obliging  them  to  return  to  their  former  habi 
tations,  clearly  preluded  the  re-establishment  of  slavery. 

Slavery,  and  even  the  slave-trade,  were  re-established,  in 
fact,  by  the  law  of  the  30th  Floreal,  X. 

We  seek  in  vain  in  the  immortal  Eistoire  du  Consulat  et  de 
V Empire,  by  M.  Thiers,  for  a  trace  of  this  odious  law.  We 

*  Moniteur,  Year  X.,  p.  291 ;  Report  of  Rear-Admiral  Lacrosse, 
f  Moniteur,  Year  X.,  p.  22,  and  25  Messidor;  Report  of  5  and  9  Prairial,  of 
General  Richepanse. 
J  Moniteur  of  the  28th  Floreal,  Year  X.,  p.  970. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  43 

would  glad^  efface  it  from  this  great  year,  1802,  which  saw 
the  Concordat,  the  Consulate  for  life,  the  peace  of  Amiens. 
We  cannot  comprehend  that  slavery  and  the  slave-trade 
should  have  been  written  anew  in  the  laws  of  France  by  the 
same  victorious  and  wise  hand  which,  at  that  very  moment, 
restored  liberty  to  its  country,  peace  to  land  and  sea,  com 
merce  to  Martinico,  St.  Lucia,  Tobago,  the  Isle  of  France, 
Bourbon,  and  the  East  Indian  possessions.  But  the  vera 
cious  and  pitiless  Moniteur  contains  this  mournful  page. 
This  informs  us  that  in  the  course  of  the  session  extraordi 
nary  convoked  on  the  occasion  of  the  peace  of  Amiens,  and 
which  lasted  from  the  15th  Germinal  to  the  30th  Floreal,  —  a 
session  the  memory  of  which  was  consecrated  by  a  medal 
solemnly  struck,  a  session  rendered  illustrious  by  the  peace, 
the  Concordat,  the  Legion  of  Honor,  the  University,  and  the 
framing  of  the  Civil  Code  and  the  Code  of  Commerce,  —  in 
this  session  of  the  legislative  body,  the  27th  Floreal,  X.,  the 
Councillors  of  State,  Dupuy,  Bruix,  and  Dessoles,  preceded 
by  a  message  from  the  Consuls,  presented  the  following 
bill :  - 

ART.  I.  In  the  colonies  restored  to  France,  in  the  exe 
cution  of  the  treaty  of  Amiens,  dated  6th  Germinal,  year 
X.,  slavery  shall  be  maintained  conformably  to  the  rules  and 
regulations  anterior  to  1789. 

ART.  II.  The  same  shall  be  done  in  the  other  French 
colonies  beyond  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 

ART.  III.  The  traffic  in  negroes,  and  their  importation 
into  the  aforesaid  colonies,  shall  take  place  conformably  to 
the  rules  and  regulations  existing  before  the  said  epoch 
of  1789. 

ART.  IV.  The  colonial  regime  sh-atl  be  subject  for  ten 
years  to  the  regulations  made  by  the  government,  all  ante 
rior  laws  notwithstanding. 

"  It  is  well  known,"  said  the  government  orator,  Dupuy, 
"  what  illusions  of  liberty  and  equality  have  been  propa- 


44  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

gated  with  respect  to  these  distant  countries,  ^vhere  the 
remarkable  difference  between  the  civilized  and  uncivilized 
man,  the  difference  of  climates,  of  colors,  of  inhabitants, 
and,  above  all,  the  safety  of  European  families,  imperatively 
exact  great  differences  in  the  civil  and  political  condition 

of  persons The  accents  of  a  philanthropy  falsely 

applied  have  affected  our  colonies  like  the  song  of  the 
siren  ;  with  them  have  come  evils  of  every  kind,  despair 
and  death." 

But  we  must  read  the  report  of  the  tribune  Adet  to  the 
session  of  the  29th  Floreal,  as  a  model  of  hypocritical 
declamation.* 

"  It  is,"  says  he,  "  with  slavery  as  with  war.  Long  have 
philosophers  mourned  the  fury  which  inspires  nations  with  a 

thirst  for  blood Notwithstanding,  all  peoples  make 

war.  What  would  be  the  condition  of  that  people  which, 
abjuring  war,  should  renounce  the  manufacture  of  arms, 
their  use,  the  support  of  an  army  ready  for  its  protection  ? 
In  breaking  the  equilibrium  of  the  forces  which  counterbalance 
it,  would  it  not  become  accountable  to  other  nations  for  the 
evils  which  its  renunciation  of  common  usage  might  draw 
upon  them,  and  would  it  not  be  itself  exposed  to  scourges 
of  every  kind  ? 

"What  I  have  just  said  of  war  may  be  applied  to  slavery. 
Whatever  may  be  the  horror  with  which  it  inspires  phi 
lanthropy,  useful  in  the  present  organization  of  European 
communities,  no  people  can  renounce  it  without  thereby 
endangering  the  interests  of  other  nations.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  institutions  which  one  is  bound  to 
respect,  even  when  wishing  to  free  himself  from  them, 
because  they  interest  tfie  safety  of  his  neighbors." 

The  tribune  Adet  next  expatiated  on  the  interests  of 
the  colonists,  and  of  the  negroes  themselves.  He  rejected 
progressive  as  well  as  immediate  emancipation,  because 

*  Moniteur  of  the  30th  Floreal  and  1st  Prairial,  Year  X.,  pp.  988,  989. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  45 

this  would  be  the  signal  for  a  bloody  insurrection  :  "  Leave 
to  time  alone  the  care  of  paving  the  way  for,  and  effecting 
in  the  colonial  organization,  the  changes  demanded  by 
humanity 

"  I  am  now  about  to  speak,  my  colleagues,  of  the  impor 
tation  of  negroes  into  the  colonies.  If  you  carry  your 
thoughts  to  the  coasts  of  Africa  ;  —  if  you  consider  the  blacks 
attached  to  the  soil  which  has  witnessed  their  birth,  sepa 
rated  from  those  whom  Nature  has  bid  them  cherish,  bend 
ing  their  eyes,  bathed  in  tears,  on  the  shores  which  they 
are  about  to  quit  forever,  tormented  by  anxiety  for  the 
future,  rent  by  memories  of  the  past,  and  erelong  enclosed 
in  a  floating  prison  to  breathe  a  burning  air,  —  your  hearts 
will  be  wrung,  and,  listening  only  to  pity,  you  will  instantly 
proscribe  the  slave-trade  as  the  most  barbarous  of  institu 
tions. 

"  But  should  you  suffer  yourselves  to  be  persuaded,  as 
magistrates,  by  a  sentiment  which  does  honor  to  you  as 
men?  Alas!  no.  If,  at  the  moment  of  giving  battle,  a 
general  yields,  at  the  sight  of  blood,  to  the  impulse  of  his 
soul,  though  excusable  in  the  eyes  of  the  private  man,  he 
will  not  be  so  in  the  sight  of  his  fellow-citizens,  who  will 
reproach  him  for  ill-timed  sensibility.  You  would  sacrifice 
to  the  blacks  the  interests  of  your  country,  by  destroying 
an  institution  necessary  to  the  colonies,  themselves  become 
necessary  to  our  existence. 

"  Let  us  content  ourselves  with  forming  wishes  that  Eu 
ropeans  may  wisely  conciliate  their  interests  with  the  duties 
of  humanity  in  the  slave-trade.  However  limited  may  be 
the  intelligence  of  the  Africans  relatively  to  our  own,  what 
ever  may  be  the  difference  between  their  species  and  ours, 
let  us  never  forget  that  they  are  men. 

"As  to  the  colonial  regime,  let  us  repose  with  confidence 
on  the  government.  Each  colony  will  erelong  become  by 
its  care  a  great  family,  all  the  parts  of  which  will  thence- 


46  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

forth  offer  to  the  philosopher,  to  the  friend  of  humanity, 
only  those  touching  scenes  of  patriarchal  life  on  which 
the  mind  and  heart  of  the  good  man  repose  with  so  much 
delight." 

The  bill  was  adopted  by  the  Tribunate,  by  a  majority  of 
fifty-four  votes  against  twenty-seven,  on  the  same  day  that 
the  institution  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  was  proposed. 

In  the  meeting  of  the  Legislative  Corps  of  the  30th  Flo- 
real,*  Jaubert  (de  la  Gironde),  the  orator  of  the  Tribunate, 
was  more  summary  than  his  colleague. 

"  Experience  teaches  us,"  said  he,  "  what  hands  can  alone 
be  employed  in  culture  in  the  colonies.  It  tells  us  what 
are  the  beings  to  which  liberty  is  but  a  poisonous  fruit. 
Let  us  turn  aside  our  eyes  from  the  pictures  which  these  ideas 

recall  to  us, let  us  obey  the  great  law  of  empires, 

necessity.    Let  us  not  trouble  the  world  with  theories" 

"  Liberty  in  Rome,"  continued  Bruix,  "  surrounded  itself 
with  slaves.  Milder  with  us,  it  banishes  them  afar.  The 
difference  of  color,  of  manners,  of  habits,  might  excuse  the 
domination  of  the  whites  ;  but  policy,  the  care  of  our  great 
ness,  and  perhaps  of  our  preservation,  binds  us  not  to  break 
the  chains  of  the  blacks." 

Regnaud  de  Saint- Jean-d'Angely  resumed  :  "  Humanity 
is  unwilling  that  we  should  condescendingly  pity  the  lot  of 
a  few  men,  and  procure  them  doubtful  good  by  exposing  a 

part  of  the  human  race  to  certain  and  terrible  evils 

By  the  aid  of  the  law  which  you  have  just  passed,  you  may 
be  sure  of  the  duration  of  the  peace  of  the  world." 

The  bill  was  adopted  by  two  hundred  and  eleven  votes 
against  sixty-three.  It  restored  to  the  colonies  f  three 
things,  slavery,  the  slave-trade,  and  absolutism. 

*  Moniteur,  p.  1015. 

t  The  Archives  of  the  Colonies  contain  the  circulars  which  accompanied  the 
despatch  of  the  decree  to  the  Colonies.  They  are  of  the  same  style  as  the 
speeches  which  preceded  the  vote.  They  style  emancipation  &' philanthropic 
error,  an  indiscreet  measure. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  47 

We  would  have  gladly  had  the  liberty  of  the  negroes 
borne  to  the  tomb  without  the  accompaniment  of  the  false 
and  sentimental  phrases  which  eight  years  before  had  re 
sounded  at  its  cradling.  We  are  forced  to  blush  once  more  at 
encountering  the  same  jargon  in  the  service  of  other  ideas  ; 
we  comprehend,  we  share,  the  contempt  of  the  First  Consul 
for  these  tribunes  turned  courtiers.  We  would  gladly  sup 
press  this  law  in  history,  but  above  all  its  commentaries  ; 
we  would  willingly  exclaim,  The  slave-trade,  but  no  phrases! 

The  law  at  least  had  some  political  reasons  for  its  motive. 

The  public  mind  was  deeply  moved  by  the  example  of  St. 
Domingo,  which  it  was  sought  to  reconquer,  and  the  Honi- 
teur  at  this  very  moment  was  publishing  the  first  reports 
of  General  Leclerc  and  Admiral  Villaret-Joyeuse.  But  why 
forget  that  the  insurrection  was  due,  not  to  emancipation, 
which  it  had  preceded,  but  to  the  law  which  gave  the  same 
rights  to  freemen  of  ev^ry  color  ?  Why  forget  that  the  first 
blood  that  flowed  was  the  blood  of  whites,  shed  by  whites  ? 
The  law  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  commenced  the  de 
struction  of  St.  Domingo  ;  the  law  of  the  Consulate  con 
summated  it ;  emancipation  did  not  cause,  and  might  have 
prevented  it. 

The  orators  of  the  government  regarded  slavery  as  neces 
sary  to  the  safety  of  families,  to  their  preservation ;  affran 
chisement,  even  progressive,  as  being  necessarily  the  signal 
for  an  insurrection.  We  have  seen  that  in  Bourbon  and  the 
Isle  of  Prance  the  blacks  had  not  even  availed  themselves 
of  their  liberty  ;  at  Guadaloupe  they  had  fought  for  the  in 
dependence  of  the  island.  All  these  reproaches  were  calum 
nious. 

The  example  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  was  alleged, 
which  had  shrunk  from  emancipation.  Sad  example  I  All 
the  disorder  of  the  colonies  and  the  ruin  of  St.  Domingo 
arose  from  this  wavering  of  the  Constituent  Assembly.  It 
was,  unhappily,  more  just  to  plead  the  laws  of  the  Constit- 


48  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

uent  Assembly  in  excuse  for  confiding  to  the  government 
the  right  of  ruling  the  colonies  by  simple  regulations,  a  right 
which  this  Assembly  had  given  to  the  king  with  respect  to 
all  the  internal  regime,  reserving  to  the  legislative  power 
the  commercial  regime.  The  Convention  had  exercised  in 
the  colonies,  as  everywhere,  absolute  power.  The  Consti 
tution  of  the  year  III.  had  completely  assimilated  the  colo 
nies  to  the  French  territory,  and  subjected  their  existence 
to  the  same  laws  as  that  of  the  Republic.  Wiser,  the  Con 
stitution  of  VIII.  declared  that  these  colonies  should  be 
regulated  by  special  laws, — but  laws,  not  regulations. 

The  example  of  England  was  no  more  just.  Doubtless  this 
great  country  entertained  no  thought  of  destroying  slavery  ; 
but  Pitt  sustained  the  persevering  efforts  of  Wilberforce  for 
the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  and  Regnaud  de  Saint-Jean- 
d'Angely  was  wrong  in  saying  that  the  postponement  voted 
in  1800  was  a  dismissal,  the  limit  of  which  would  be  known 
alone  to  posterity ;  for  this  limit,  as  is  and  might  have  been 
seen,  was  not  far  off. 

The  truth  is,  that,  among  the  colonies  we  had  retained 
and  those  which  had  been  restored  to  us,  some  had  pre 
served  slavery,  others  had  abolished  it  ;  it  was  difficult  to 
choose.  To  accept  the  chances  of  complete  abolition  was 
perhaps  to  risk  the  return  of  commercial  activity  to  which 
we  were  so  ardently  aspiring  ;  it  was  to  charge  ourselves 
with  a  distant,  burdensome,  complex  question,  the  mere 
thought  of  which  was  calculated  to  weary  the  impatience 
of  the  impetuous  genius  who  had  espoused  a  Creole,  who 
detested  ideologists,  was  irritated  by  petty  difficulties,  and 
did  not  like  to  be  distracted  from  the  continent  by  interests 
beyond  the  sea.  Seduced  for  a  moment  by  the  great  thought 
of  restoring  the  colonial  and  commercial  power  of  France,* 
he  nevertheless  soon  came  to  prefer  the  Continental  and 
manufacturing  system ;  he  would  one  day  sell  Louisiana, 

*  Thiers,  Histoire  du  Consulat,  Liv.  XVI.  Vol.  IV. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  49 

for  which  he  had  recently  bartered  Etruria,  and  already  he 
had  just  ceded  Trinidad.  He  sent  Leclerc  to  St.  Domingo, 
Richepanse  to  Guadaloupe.  He  re-established  slavery  by 
force  and  by  law  ;  had  he  abolished  it,  posterity  would  have 
placed  the  anniversary  above  that  of  Marengo. 

England  was  unwilling  that  the  example  should  be  pre 
maturely  set  her  colonies  which  she  reserved  later  for  ours. 
The  Convention,  in  emancipating,  had  intended  to  injure 
•England  ;  on  re-establishing  peace,  slavery  was  re-estab 
lished  to  please  her. 

Thus  the  work  of  the  Convention  was  defeated  by  the 
Consulate  ;  the  law  of  1794  marks  a  sombre  epoch  with  a 
luminous  spot  ;  the  law  of  1802  sullies  with  a  stain  an 
incomparable  moment. 

The  signal  of  new  disorders  and  new  severities  in  the 
colonies,  this  law  came  to  recommence  the  evil  at  the  mo 
ment  when  it  was  wellnigh  repaired  ;  it  closed  once  more 
the  lamentable  circle  which  men  fatally  follow  from  oppres 
sion  to  revolt,  and  from  revolt  to  oppression  ;  it  punished 
the  slaves  for  not  having  known  how  to  be  free,  it  punished 
the  masters  for  not  having  known  how  to  be  just,  yet  left 
unscathed  another  criminal,  the  law,  by  whose  faults  those 
of  men  had  been  caused.  Soldiers,  threats,  and  severities 
were  needed  to  re-establish  the  order,  which  had  not  been 
disturbed  by  liberty,  let  us  not  forget,  in  Bourbon  or  Marti- 
nico  ;  it  could  not  be  re-established  in  St.  Domingo,  forever 
lost  to  France.* 

Guadaloupe  had  nearly  shared  the  same  fate.     Taken,  in 

*  The  chief  of  brigade,  Navery,  wrote  from  St.  Domingo  to  the  Minister  of 
the  Marine,  2  Ventose,  XI.  :  — 

"  I  informed  General  Dugua  that,  although  the  negroes  had  returned  to  their 
labor,  they  appeared  to  me  fully  resolved  not  to  suffer  themselves  to  be  dis 
armed,  because  we  sought  to  deceive  them  with  respect  to  their  liberty 

Even  to  the  women,  who,  taking  their  children  by  the  feet  and  drawing  the 
limbs  apart,  said  to  me,  '  See  what  we  will  do ;  we  will  rend  our  children  asun 
der  rather  than  suffer  them  to  become  slaves! '  "  —  Archives  coloniales,  unpiib- 
liahed  letter. 

3  D 


50  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

1810,  by  the  English,  ceded  to  the  Swedes  (1813),  given  up 
to  France,  retaken,  it  was  finally  restored,  July  25,  1816  ; 
three  months  after  Martinico,  given  up  in  1802,  retaken  in 
1807,  restored  by  the  treaties  of  1815.  The  same  treaties 
restored  to  us  Bourbon,  which,  taken  in  1810,  returned  to 
us  in  1815,  but  without  the  Isle  of  France,  after  having 
sustained  a  blockade  during  the  Hundred  Days  rather  than 
place  themselves  under  English  protection. 

But  it  was  with  the  liberty  of  the  slaves  as  with  so  many 
other  principles  proclaimed  at  the  moment  of  the  Revolu 
tion.  Once  diffused  through  the  world,  principles  will  not 
die,  but  their  triumph  will  be  disputed  and  laborious  ;  they 
seem  condemned  to  expiate  by  long  compromises  the  ex- 
cess  of  a  too  hasty  outburst,  and  to  become  purified  by 
a  sort  of  penitence  ;  we  return  to  them  with  slow  steps  ; 
we  stretch  our  hand  to  them  tremblingly  ;  not  until  two 
generations  have  buried  in  the  tomb  the  suspicions  and 
memories  of  melancholy  days  does  time  finally  efface  from 
the  brow  of  justice  the  stains  which  still  rob  the  next  half- 
century  of  a  portion  of  its  beauty. 

To  England  thenceforth  passed  the  honor  of  the  initia 
tive  in  the  movement,  of  which  France,  let  us  not  forget, 
had  given  the  signal. 


CHAPTER    II. 

FKOM  THE  RE-ESTABLISHMENT  OF  SLAVERY  BY  THE  CONSU 
LATE  (1802)  TO  ITS  SECOND  ABOLITION  BY  THE  REPUBLIC 
OF  1848. 

WE  are  not  to  ask  of  the  end  of  the  Consulate,  after  the 
too  speedy  rupture  of  the  peace  of  Amiens,  nor  of  the 
Empire,  new  hopes  in  behalf  of  colonial  progress.  The 
St.  Domingo  expedition  took  away  all  remaining  interest  in 
the  cause  of  the  slaves  ;  it  was  forsaken,  and,  as  it  were,  a 
prisoner  with  Toussaint.  In  France,  in  Europe,  the  war 
occupied  the  governments  too  constantly  for  them  to  have 
time  to  think  of  acts  of  virtue  ;  on  the  seas,  instead  of 
chasing  slave-ships,  it  armed  privateers  ;  before  dreaming 
of  reforming  the  colonies,  it  soon  became  necessary  to  ask 
whether  it  were  possible  to  preserve  them.  The  moment 
seemed  near  when  all  commerce  with  them  would  be  in 
terrupted  ;  the  government  encouraged  the  culture  of  the 
beet-root  to  replace  by  indigenous  sugar  the  sugar  of  the 
colonies,  and  asked  of  M.  Parmentier  instructions  for  this 
new  culture,  the  future  progress  of  which  it  was  far  from 
foreseeing. 

Doubtless,  public  opinion  might  still  have  been  moved 
In  the  midst  of  national  anxieties,  the  permanent  interests 
of  humanity  did  not  cease  for  a  moment  to  occupy  England. 
It  was  from  1180  to  1799,  from  1800  to  1805,  that  the  per 
severing  agitation  of  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson  occurred  ; 
it  was  in  1806  and  1807  that  it  triumphed.  But  in  France, 
at  this  epoch,  public  opinion  was  itself  a  slave  awaiting 
emancipation. 


52  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

We  may,  therefore,  pass  quickly,  in  our  present  study, 
over  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  content 
ourselves  with  pointing  out,  as  an  echo  of  the  Christian 
thought,  Article  1180  of  the  Civil  Code,  which  reads  :  "All 
persons  are  forbidden  to  let  their  services,  except  for  a  limited 
time." 

Overthrown  by  the  excesses  of  the  Revolution,  restored 
by  the  excesses  of  war,  it  was  the  wish  of  the  Bourbons, 
as  well  as  their  mission,  to  bring  to  France,  wearied  with 
agitation,  strife,  and  despotism,  order,  peace,  and  deliv 
erance.  It  was  their  glory  to  proclaim  the  principle  of 
liberty,  despite  the  memory  of  the  crimes  committed  in 
its  name  ;  it  was  their  inclination  to  seek  in  the  past  the 
image  of  authority.  The  ocean  does  not  separate  two 
continents  and  two  peoples  more  entirely  than  the  torrent 
of  the  Revolution  had  separated  the  past  from  the  present 
to  all  Frenchmen,  except  to  themselves  alone.  In  the  eyes 
of  contemporaries,  everything  was  beginning  ;  to  them, 
everything  was  continuing.  Belonging  to  the  nineteenth 
century  by  their  loyal  intentions,  but  very  pardonably  drawn 
towards  the  institutions  of  another  age  by  the  weight  of 
illustrious  traditions,  we  see  them  thus  stamp  the  greater 
part  of  their  acts  with  a  twofold  character,  according  as 
they  obeyed  the  spirit  of  their  times  or  their  origin.  This 
double  influence  made  itself  particularly  felt  in  the  govern 
ment  of  colonial  affairs,  left  by  the  Charter  to  the  regime  of 
special  laws  and  regulations. 

Thus,  as  soon  as  the  government  had  retaken  possession 
of  Martinico,  Guadaloupe,  Guiana,  and  Bourbon,  the  new 
governors-general  re-established  there  the  institutions  an 
terior  to  1789.  The  Court  of  Appeals  resumed  the  name 
of  Superior  Council;  the  courts  of  first  instance,  those  of 
Seneschal's  and  Admiralty  Courts;  and  the  edict  of  1681  was 
again  put  in  force.  The  old  colonial  policy,  which  con 
sisted,  as  is  well  known,  in  establishing  between  the  mother 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  53 

country  and  the  colonies,  as  between  a  freeholder  and  his 
country-house,  a  -free  privileged  exchange  of  products,  re 
established  the  so-called  duty  of  the  West  Indian  demesne, 
the  import  and  export  duties,  and  the  interdiction  to  for 
eigners  of  all  ports,  with  a  few  exceptions.*  "  If  we 
examine  into  the  circumstances  in  which  the  government 
found  itself  placed  at  this  epoch/'  says  M.  Eossif  with 
truth,  "we  shall  frankly  admit  that  it  could  neither  think 
of  abandoning  the  colonies  which  had  just  been  restored 
to  France  by  treaties,  nor  of  applying  to  them  at  first  sight 
any  other  than  the  ancient  colonial  system. "  But,  at  the 
same  time  with  the  edict  of  1681,  the  duty  of  the  West  In 
dian  domain,  and  the  Seneschal's  Courts,  to  the  Restoration 
belongs  the  credit,  from  1805,  of  maintaining  the  Civil  Code, 
which  was  in  force  in  the  colonies,  with  the  exception  of 
the  clause  of  forced  expropriation.  J  (Tit.  XIX.  Liv.  III.) 
The  same  government  extended  to  Martinico  the  code  of 
civil  procedure,  introduced  into  Guadaloupe  and  Bourbon 
subsequent  to  1808,  and  regulated  its  application  in  these 
two  colonies.  §  It  established  in  all  the  observance  of  the 
penal  code  and  the  code  of  criminal  instruction,  ||  and  the 
judicial  organization  of  France.^"  It  regulated  the  mode  of 
procedure  before  the  privy  councils  ;  **  enlarged  the  permit 
ted  relations  between  the  colonies  and  foreign  countries  ;  f  f 

*  Ordinance  of  December  12,  1814.  A  decree  of  the  Council  of  State,  August 
30,  1814,  declared  the  port  of  St.  Pierre  alone  open  in  Martinico  to  foreigners. 
(See  the  proclamations  of  the  Marquis  de  Vaugiraud,  Governor  of  Martinico;  of 
Baron  Boyer  de  Piereleau,  Governor  pro  tern,  of  Guadaloupe,  until  the  arrival 
of  Admiral  Linois.  Moniteur,  February  14,  1815.) 

t  Report  to  the  Chamber  of  Peers  on  the  bill  of  the  Sugar  Law,  June  20, 1843. 

f  Martinico,  Nov.  7 ;  Guadaloupe,  Nov.  9 ;  Bourbon,  Oct.  7  and  25 ;  Guiana, 
Sept.  23,  1805.  The  Code  of  Commerce,  applied  to  Guadaloupe  and  Bourbon 
subsequently  to  1808  and  1809,  was  not  introduced  into  Martinico  until  after 
the  law  of  Dec.  7,  1850. 

§  Ordinances  of  Dec.  19  and  30, 1827;  Oct.  12  and  29,  1828;  Feb.  15  and  May 
10,  1829. 

||  Sept.  30,  1827;  Sept.  24,  1828;  Oct.  10,  1829. 

T  Aug.  31,  1828.  **  Feb.  5,  1826.  ft   Aug.  30,  1826;  Aug.  26,  1827. 


54  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

fixed  the  monetary  regime  ;  *  introduced  the  metrical  sys 
tem,!  registration,  and  hypothecation.  £•  There  was  no 
idea  of  assimilating  the  colonies  to  the  mother  country, 
nor  of  re-establishing  therein  the  Colonial  Assemblies;  the 
example  of  the  Revolution  deprecated  these  two  systems. 
Nevertheless,  in  1820,  consultative  committees  were  created. § 
By  the  ordinance  of  January  26,  1825,  the  expenses  of  ad 
ministration  were  separated  from  the  expenses  of  protection ; 
the  one  being  left  to  the  charge  of  the  colonies,  the  other 
to  that  of  the  budget  of  the  state.  By  the  ordinance  of 
August  17,  the  local  revenues  of  the  estates  of  the  domain 
were  made  over  to  the  colonies  to  defray  their  internal 
expenses.  But,  above  all,  the  colonies  owe  to  the  Resto 
ration  the  three  great  ordinances  of  1825,  1821,  and  1828  ;  || 
which,  modified  by  that  of  August  22,  1833,  and  by  the 
senatus-consultum  of  May  3,  1854,  continue,  notwithstand 
ing,  to  be  the  veritable  basis  of  the  legal  and  administrative 
regime  in  our  trans-oceanic  possessions.  At  the  same  time, 
nothing  was  neglected  by  ministers  such  as  MM.  Portal, 
de  Chabrol,  and  Hyde  de  Neuville  to  impart  a  lively  im 
pulse  to  the  commerce  and  agriculture  of  the  colonies. 
Banks  created,  premiums  accorded  to  improvements  of 
every  kind,  numerous  shipments  of  seeds  and  animals, 
revision  of  the  legislation  of  customs,^  innumerable  ame 
liorations  of  details,  make  of  the  period  of  the  Restoration, 
despite  disasters  generously  repaired  and  petty  insurrec- 

*  1820,  1825,  1828. 

t  Dec.  31,  1828;  June  14,  1829.  The  stamp  was  not  in  existence  in  Bourbon 
till  1804. 

J  June  14,  Nov.  22,  1829. 

§  Ordinance  of  Nov.  22,  1821;  Moniteur,  1821,  p.  1447. 

||  Bourbon,  ordinance  of  Aug.  21,  1825;  Martinico  and  Guadaloupe,  Feb.  9, 
1827;  Guiana,  Aug.  27,  1828.  The  first,  in  195  articles,  and* the  second,  in  211 
articles,  were  the  work  of  M.  de  Chabrol;  the  third,  in  196  articles,  was  signed 
on  the  report  of  M.  Hyde  de  Neuville. 

T[  Ordinance  of  Oct.  25,  1829. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  55 

tions  without  serious  consequences,  an  era  to  the  colonies 
of  great  development  and  good  administration. 

The  emancipation  of  the  slaves  was  thought  of,  —  how 
could  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  —  but  it  was  not  attempted. 
They  remained  outside  all  the  preceding  laws.  The  ancient 
monarchy  had  not  abolished  slavery ;  the  Revolution  had 
done  so,  but  at  the  ill-omened  date  of  1794,  a  few  days 
before  the  President,  Mole  de  Champlatreux,  and  the  first 
magistrates  of  the  Parliaments  of  Paris  and  Toulouse, 
mounted  the  scaffold.  It  had  been  re-established  at  the 
same  time  with  public  order.  The  events  of  St.  Domingo  — 
even  after  the  king  had  sent  Baron  de  Mackau  to  recognize 
the  Presidency  of  General  Boyer,  and  the  independence  of 
the  island  (July  IT,  1825)] — had  left  in  the  public  mind  great 
pity  for  the  colonists,  whose  indemnity  was  being  labori 
ously  effected,  and  great  animosity  against  the  negroes. 
The  colonists  had  suffered  so  much,  that  men  dreaded  for 
their  progress  the  mere  announcement  of  a  moral  agitation. 
The  Restoration  had  so  much  to  pay,  that  they  feared  for 
its  finances  the  demand  of  a  new  indemnity. 

At  length,  the  Congress  of  1815,  thanks  to  the  initiative 
of  Lord  Castlereagh,  and  the  solicitations  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  despite  the  opposition  of  Spain,  abolished  the 
slave-trade.  It  was  erroneously  supposed  that  slavery, 
unable  longer  to  recruit  its  forces  from  Africa,  was  about 
to  die. 

These  fears,  these  memories,  these  reasons,  these  illu 
sions,  united  to  postpone  anew  the  liberty  of  so  many 
unfortunate  beings  who,  rebellious  or  submissive,  had 
shown  for  so  many  years  the  facility  of  their  race  to  suffer 
guidance. 

In  short,  under  the  Restoration  the  colonies  received 
from  the  government  two  precious  boons,  —  order  and 
repose. 

We  may  judge  by  statistics  of  the  prosperity  that  thence 


56  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

resulted  :*  in  1816,  the  total  production  of  colonial  sugars 
was  but  17,677,475  kilogrammes;  in  1826,  it  reached 
73,266,291  kilogrammes  ;  in  1829,  80,996,914  kilogrammes. 
But  the  movement  for  emancipation  was  not  carried  for 
ward  during  this  epoch  by  the  French  government ;  it 
belonged  to  England  and  to  public  opinion. 

After  having  generously  lent  herself  to  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade,  France  did  little  towards  practically  exe 
cuting  the  solemn  pledges  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna ;  and 
it  must  be  confessed  that,  despite  the  statutes  of  April 
15,  1818,  and  April  25,  1827,  the  slave-trade,  diminished, 
watched  over,  and  sometimes  repressed,  was  not  interrupt 
ed  until  1830.  Mr.  Clarkson  repaired  to  the  Congress  of 
Aix-la-Chapelle,f  to  demand  that  the  crime  of  the  slave- 
trade  should  be  assimilated  to  piracy,  and  that  the  powers 
should  unite  to  obtain  of  Portugal  and  Spain  the  cessation 
of  this  odious  traffic.  The  Emperor  Alexander,  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  and  Lord  Castlereagh,  were  in  favor  of  both 
measures.  In  the  discussion  of  the  law  on  piracy  and 
barratry,  (statute  of  April  12,  1825,)  M.  Benjamin  Con 
stant  J  asked  why  the  slave-trader  was  not  assimilated  to 
the  pirate,  and  consequently  punished  with  death,  or  hard 
labor  for  life?  "Whoever  carries  on  or  commands  the 
slave-trade,"  exclaimed  he,  energetically,  "is  a  criminal, 
an  armed  brigand,  often  an  assassin.  He  is,  besides,  as 
cowardly  as  ferocious  ;  he  has  not  even  the  courage  of  the 
pirate  ;  he  deserves  no  less  hatred,  and  greater  contempt/' 
But  this  measure  failed  to  become  law. 

*  Let  us  quote  separately  the  statistics  of  Bourbon,  the  most  prosperous  of 
the  colonies  since  the  loss  of  St.  Domingo.  In  1825,  the  product  of  the  cultures 
was  17,783,900  francs;  thirty  years  after,  with  a  population  of  153,000,  instead 
of  63,000,  it  amounted  to  but  28,278,795  francs;  in  1855,  the  joint  imports  and 
exports  amounted  to  32,982,225  francs,  while  in  1825  the  same  sources  already 
amounted  to  20,723,041  francs.  (Essai  statistique  sur  file  de  Bourbon,  by  M. 
Thomas,  1826.  Notices  sur  les  colonies,  by  M.  Roy,  1856.) 

t  Moniteur,  Jan.  14,  1819. 

J  Session  of  April  5,  Moniteur,  April  6,  p.  507. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  57 

In  vain,  by  reference  to  the  budget  of  the  Marine,  or  by 
petitions,  was  the  question  of  the  slave-trade,  and  that  of 
slavery,  carried  before  the  public  authorities.  A  last  time, 
in  1829,  M.  de  Tracy  mounted  the  rostrum  to  denounce  the 
continuance  of  the  slave-trade,*  and  to  demand  the  estab 
lishment  in  the  colonies  of  a  regular  civil  state,  so  often 
promised,  which  should  permit  the  verification  of  the  right 
to  slaves.  But  all  these  manifestations  only  ended  in  refer 
ences  to  government,  or,  rather,  in  less  sterile  references 
to  public  opinion,  which  did  not  cease  for  a  single  day, 
by  journals,  books,  academical  prizes,  societies,  sermons, 
and  speeches,  to  raise  to  God  the  prayer  which  men  had 
rejected. 

The  Revolution  of  1830,  in  bringing  into  public  affairs  a 
number  of  the  political  personages  who  had  solicited  eman 
cipation,  imposed  on  them  the  duty,  and  furnished  them  the 
means,   of  remaining  faithful  to  themselves.     Preoccupied 
from  its  first  steps  with  this  noble  end,  the  government 
of  July  did  not   cease    a   single   day  to    think   upon   and 
promote  it.     It  did  for  the  internal  reform  of  the  colonies 
what  the  Restoration  had  done  for  their  repose  and  pros 
perity  ;    it  prepared  them,   in   spite  of  all   opposition  and 
predictions,  to  live  and  to  grow  without  slaves,  and  with 
out  monopolies.     What  the  government  of  July  did  for  the 
queen  of  our  colonies,  Algeria,  the  last  gift  of  the  Restora 
tion  to  France,  is  well  known.     We  owe  to  it  also  in  Africa 
the  entrepots  of   Sedhiou    (183T),   Grand    Bassam    (1842)% 
the    Marquesas    (1842),    Gabon   (1842),    Assynia    (1843) A 
the  islands  of  Nossi-be  and  Mayotte  in  the  Mozambique  i 
Channel    (1843),    and    the    Tahitian    Archipelago    (1842  -  1< 
1846).     A  great  political  thought,  then  sIPbngly  contested,   I       ^, 
had  conceived  the  project  of  thus  securing  to  France  set-  /     K 
tlements,  planted  at  regular  intervals  around  the  globe,  to  /, 


*  Moniteur,  p.  1221. 
3* 


58  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

serve  as  a  shelter  to  her  flag,  as  stations  to  her  commerce, 
and  as  fulcrums  to  her  influence. 

Without  setting  forth  here  how  much  the  government  of 
July  expended,  besides  money,  efforts,  and  perseverance, 
and  despite  the  most  ardent  opposition,  to  co-operate 
earnestly  with  England  for^the  suppression  of  the  slave- 
trade,  which  it  hastened  to  abolish  by  the  statute  of  March 
4,  1831,  let  us  limit  ourselves  to  examining  rapidly  its  acts 
for  paving  the  way  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  as  numerous 
as  the  years  of  its  duration. 

The  Charter  of  1830,  like  that  of  1814,  placed  the  colo 
nies  under  a  special  regime,  but  indicated  that  it  should  be 
regulated  by  laws,  without  adding  and  by  regulations.  All 
the  public  authorities  were  thus  more  nearly  associated  in 
this  important  task.  They  united  in  inscribjngjin  the  two 
statutes  of  April  24,  1833,  the  equal  rights  ofjnen  born 
free  afid  those_emancipated,  the  re-establishment  of  colonial 
councils  and  delegates,  and  the  apportionment  of  patters 
to  be  regulated  by  the  law,  by  ordinances,  or  by  local 
decrees. 

We  shall  see  that  the  government  knew  how  to  make  an 
able  and  diligent  use  of  the  part  assigned  to  it. 

The  ordinances  of  March  1  and  July  12,  1832,*  sup 
pressed  the  tax  on  emancipations,  and  simplified  their  form. 
The  penalties  of  branding  and  mutilation  were  abolished  by 
the  ordinance  of  April  30,  1833.  Two  ordinances  of  April 
29,  1836,  sanctioned  the  liberation,  and  created  the  civil 
state,  of  emancipated  slaves  brought  to  France ;  and  another 
ordinance,  June  11,  1839,  established  cases  of  emancipation 
by  law. 

Two  ordinance  August  4,  1833,  and  June  11,  1839, 
obligated  the  regular  registration  and  returns  of  the  births, 
marriages,  and  deaths  of  slaves. 

*  Codicil  A  to  the  proces-verbal  of  the  colonial  commission,  meeting  of  June 
4,  1840. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  59 

An  ordinance  of  January  5,  1840,  regulated  the  primary 
and  religious  instruction  of  the  slaves,  and  placed  them 
under  the  patronage  of  public  magistrates,  charged  with 
examining  regularly  into  the  condition  of  their  workshops 
and  plantations. 

Two  memorable  facts  —  emancipation  in  all  the  English 
colonies  (1834),  and  the  publication  of  a  bull  by  Pope"" 
Gregory  YVT  (ISM),  p.m^mnTpTig-  ihe  siaTfrtiraae  ami  slav 
ery—had  finally  given  an  irresistible  impetus  to  public 
opinion.  Ardent  Democrats,*  by  force  of  believing  in  the 
rights  of  man,  zealous  Catholics  and  sincere  Protestants, 
by  force  of  believing  in  duties  toward  man,  were  of  one 
mind.  The  preparatory  measures  of  the  government  were 
taxed  with  insufficiency  and  slowness,  and  the  interpella 
tions  addressed  to  M.  de  Rigny  in  1833,  in  1835  to  the 
Duke  de  Broglie  and  Admiral  Duperre,  and  renewed  almost 
every  year  by  M.  Isambert,  followed  by  solemn  and  sincere 
promises,  were  not  prompt  enough  to  content  the  public 
mind. 

M.  Hippolyte  Passy  had  the  honor  first  directly  to  at 
tack  the  subject  of  emancipation,  by  presenting  to  the 
Chamber,  February  10,  1838,  the  following  bill :  f - 

ART.  I.  From  the  date  of  the  promulgation  of  the  present 
law,  all  children  born  in  the  French  colonies  shall  be  free, 
whatever  may  be  the  condition  of  their  parents. 

ART.  II.  Children  born  of  slave  parents  shall  remain 
under  the  care  of  their  mother,  and  an  indemnity  of  fifty 
francs  per  head  for  each  child  shall  be  awarded  to  the 
owners  of  the  mothers  for  ten  consecutive  years.  This 
indemnity  shall  cease  to  be  paid  in  case  the  child  from 

*  L1  Abolition,  by  M.  Schoelcher;  Christianisme  et  Esdavage,  by  l'Abb<5  The"- 
rou,  etc.;  VEsclavage  colonial,  by  M.  Castelli,  apostolic  prefect;  Esclavage  et 
Traite,by  M.  Age"nor  de  Gasparin,  1838;  Reflexions  sur  V  affrancMssement  de* 
csdavcs  aux  colonies  frangaises,  by  M.  Lacharriere,  President  of  the  Court  of 
Guadaloupe. 

t  Moniteur,  p.  271. 


60  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

whose  birth  the  right  to  it  arises  shall  die  before  attaining 
the  full  age  often  years. 

ART.  III.  All  slaves  shall  have  the  right  to  purchase  their 
freedom,  at  a  price  fixed  by  arbiters,  designated  in  advance 
by  the  metropolitan  authority. 

The  indemnity  due  to  owners,  for  children  born  of  slave 
mothers,  shall  revert  of  right  to  such  of  the  mothers  as 
may  purchase  their  freedom. 

Wedded  slaves  shall  not  be  separated  in  case  of  sale. 
Husbands  or  wives  who  buy  their  liberty  shall  pay  but 
two  thirds  of  the  price  fixed  by  the  arbiters  ;  the  remaining 
third  shall  be  paid  by  the  state. 

ART.  IV.  Royal  ordinances,  which  shall  be  communicated 
to  the  Chambers  in  the  session  folfowing  their  promulga-. 
tion,  shall  decide  on  the  measures  to  be  taken  for  the 
registration  and  protection  of  children  born  of  slave  moth 
ers,  for  the  distribution  and  choice  of  arbiters  charged 
with  regulating  the  conditions  of  redemption  of  freedom, 
for  the  establishment  of  savings  banks,  and  for  all  that 
concerns  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  slaves, 
and  the  execution  of  the  present  law. 

This  clear  and  complete  bill  deserved  to  be  taken  into 
consideration,  and  was  so,  in  fact.  Its  author  sustained  it 
by  eminently  practical  arguments  (see  meeting  of  February 
15),  and  MM.  de  Lamartine,  Guizot,  and  Barrot  united  in 
supporting  it.  In  vaiu  the  government  declared  the  bill 
inopportune,  because  of  the  condition  of  the  English  and 
French  colonies  ;  iniquitous,  because  it  did  not  propose 
a  preliminary  and  sufficient  indemnity ;  and  inhuman,  be 
cause  it  broke  all  bonds  between  the  master  and  child. 
The  Chamber  unanimously  deemed  it  time  to  bring  to  light 
what  M.  de  Lamartine  eloquently  called  "  this  great  ex 
propriation  for  the  cause  of  public  morality/'* 

The  bill   of  M.   Passy  was    only   a  plan    of  incomplete 
*  Meeting  of  Feb.  15,  1838,  Moniteur,  Feb.  16,  p.  817. 


HISTOKY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  61 

emancipation.  He  opened  three  broad  doors  to  freedom  ; 
children  received  it  with  life,  men  attained  to  it  through 
property,  families  received  it  through  the  aid  of  the  state. 
It  was  an  excellent  programme  for  the  gradual  abolition  of 
slavery  under  two  conditions,  —  little  money,  and  plenty 
of  time  ;  the  one  was  suited  to  please  the  mother  country, 
the  other,  the  colonies.  A  report*  —  one  of  the  best  — 
penned  by  one  of  our  first  writers,  M.  de  Remusat,  was  the 
eloquent  commentary  on  the  proposition  of  M.  Passy.  It 
had  been  preceded  by  a  profound  study  and  serious  and 
prolonged  inquiry  on  the  legal  condition  of  the  slaves,  the 
economical  condition  of  the  colonies,  and  the  first  results 
of  the  English  experiment. f  As  firm  in  principle,  the 
commission  tempered  the  conclusions  of  M.  Passy,  and, 
yielding  also  to  the  thought  of  consulting  the  colonies, 
and  the  desire  of  receiving  a  more  complete  lesson  from 
the  example  of  the  English  colonies,  limited  itself  to  pro 
posing.  - 

1.  That  the  costs  to  which  the  measures  destined  to  pave 
the  way  for  emancipation  should  give  rise  should  be  at  the 
expense  of  the  state  ;  which  was,  by  accepting  a  charge,  to 
reclaim  a  right. 

2.  That,  in  consequence,  each  year  the  finance  law  should 
include  in  the  budget  the  sums  necessary  to  co-operate  in 
the  extension  of  religious  service,  and  the  propagation  of 
primary  instruction. 

3.  That,   in  three  months,   the  government  should  make 
ordinances  on  the  forms,  civil  effects,  and  authorization  of 
marriage  of  persons  not  free. 

4.  That  other  ordinances  should  regulate  the  right  of  the 
slaves  to  acquire  money,  and  obligatory  redemption. 

5.  That  a  bureau   of  inspection  of  the  measures  taken 
should  be  created  at  the  expense  of  the  state. 

*  Moniteur,  June  19,  1838,  p.  1746. 

t  Members  of  the  Commission,  MM.  Guizot,  Croissant,  Berryer,  de  Remusat, 
Baron  Roger,  Laborde,  H.  Passy,  Isambert,  and  Galos. 


62  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

6.  That  an  annual  account  of  the  execution  of  the  law 
should  be  rendered  to  the  Chambers. 

At  the  present  time,  these  conclusions  seem  very  timid  ; 
they  simply  say  to  the  state  :  "  You  shall  demand  money 
of  us  to  do  as  you  like,  you  shall  charge  inspectors  with 
watching  over  what  you  have  done,  and  when  they  have 
rendered  you  an  account  of  it,  we  shall  render  you  an 
account  of  it  ourselves." 

The  dissolution  of  the  Chamber  of  1837  brought  to 
naught  the  proposition  of  M.  Passy.  But,  reproduced  in 
exactly  the  same  terms  by  M.  de  Tracy,  June  7,  1839,  dis 
cussed  on  the  12th,*  the  very  day  after  the  ordinances  for 
the  registration  of  slaves,  and  supported  this  time  in  the 
name  of  the  government  by  M.  Passy  himself,  Minister  of 
Finance,  the  proposition  was  taken  into  consideration  by 
an  immense  majority,  and  referred  to  a  commission,  which 
chose  for  its  chairman  M.  de  Tocqueville. 

With  that  measure  of  sagacity  and  profundity  which 
stamps  all  his  writings,  M.  de  Tocqueville  clearly  demon 
strated  why  the  commission  preferred  the  system  of  gen 
eral  and  simultaneous  to  that  of  gradual  emancipation, — the 
one,  necessitating  the  intervention  of  the  law,  indemnity, 
and  administration,  at  once  transforms,  under  the  influence 
of  a  vigorous,  uniform,  and  far-seeing  impulse,  the  whole 
colonial  society ;  the  other  disorganizes  labor,  takes  from 
the  colonists  their  best  slaves,  the  love  of  work  from  these 
last,  and  patience  from  those  who  remain  captives,  and 
continues  long  to  disturb,  without  emancipating.  The 
commission  proposed  a  bill  of  three  articles,  which  obliged 
the  government  to  produce  a  bill  of  complete  emancipation 
during  the  session  of  1841.  The  report,  presented  July  24, 
1839,  had  not  been  discussed  at  the  end  of  the  session,  and 
January  27,  1840,  M.  de  Tocqueville  demanded  that  the 
proposition  should  be  resumed. 

*  Moniteur  of  1839,  pp.  896,  950. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  63 

The  government,  stimulated  by  this  generous  pressure, 
had  commissioned  the  Governors  of  the  colonies  *  to  con 
sult  the  Colonial  Councils  with  respect  to  the  report  of  M. 
de  Kemusat.  After  that  of  M.  de  Tocqueville,  which  was 
also  sent  to  the  Governors, f  the  Cabinet  Council, J  on  the 
report  of  Admiral  Duperre,  declared  itself  ready  to  adhere 
to  the  basis  of  the  plan  set  forth  by  the  commission,  and 
instituted  in  the  colonies  a  special  council,  composed  of  the 
Governor,  the  Ordainer,  the  Director  of  the  Interior,  the 
Attorney-General,  and  the  Colonial  Inspector,  to  furnish 
the  documents  necessary  to  the  presentation  pf  a  bill. 

At  the  same  time  it  proposed,  and  the  Chambers  voted 
to  the  budget  of  1840  and  1841,  an  appropriation  of  650,000 
francs  to  increase  the  clergy,  chapels,  schools,  and  number 
of  magistrates,  whom  the  ordinance  of  July  5  designated 
as  the  protectofs  of  the  slaves.  (Ordinance  of  November 
6,  1839.) 

We  were  advancing  slowly,  but  surely.  What  were  the 
colonies  doing  meanwhile  ?  It  would  have  been  supposed 
that,  warned  by  the  progress  of  the  movement  of  public 
opinion  aroused  in  France  against  slavery,  warned,  above 
all,  by  the  example  of  the  English  colonies,  and  pressed  by 
the  solicitations  of  the  government,  our  colonial  possessions 
would  have  prepared  themselves  by  degrees  for  emancipa 
tion.  Nothing  of  the  sort ;  they  prepared  only  for  resist 
ance.  To  believe  interested  theories,  servitude  is  the 
novitiate  of  liberty,  but  it  is  a  novitiate  which  never 
ends,  and  the  sole  result  of  which,  on  the  contrary,  is  to 
destroy  in  the  slave  all  hope,  and  in  the  master  the  very 
conception  of  liberty. 

When  the  government  intervened,  it  found  minds  closed 
to  all  enlightenment,  interests  leagued  together  against  the 
least  concession. 

The  ordinance  of  August  4,  1833,  which  prescribed  the 

*  Aug.  21,  1838.  f  Aug.  9,  1839.  J  Dec.  16,  1839. 


64  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

general  registration  of  the  slaves,  was  considered  as  a 
means  of  establishing  a  civil  state  for  the  blacks  at  Mar- 
tinico  ;  the  Royal  Court,  by  thirty-eight  decrees,  refused  to 
pronounce  the  penalties  declared  against  the  delinquents, 
and  these  decrees,  annulled  by  the  Court  of  Cassation, 
were  sent  back  to  the  Court  of  Guadaloupe,  which  again 
acquitted  all  the  prisoners.* 

On  being  consulted,  in  1835,  on  redemption,  and  the 
means  of  facilitating  the  acquirement  of  money  by  slaves, 
the  Colonial  Council  replied,  that  the  mother  country  had 
no  right  to  concern  itself  with  these  questions. 

On  the  communication  of  the  bill  of  M.  Passy,  all  the 
councils  replied  by  demanding  the  rejection  of  the  bill,  and 
even  of  the  modest  conclusions  of  the  commission. 

To  the  last  appeal  made  by  the  government,  in  1840, 
it  was  replied  :  — 

By  the  Council  of  Martinico  (March  2,  1841),  that  the 
intervention  of  the  mother  country  was  illegal,  and  that  it 
protested  against  any  emancipation  at  any  epoch  whatso 
ever  ;  — 

By  the  Council  of  Guadaloupe,  that  slavery  was  a  benefit, 
and  that  voluntary  emancipation  and  the  blending  of  the 
races  would  by  degrees  resolve  the  question  ;  — 

By  the  Council  of  Bourbon,  that  slavery  was  the  provi 
dential  and  permanent  instrument  of  civilization ;  that  it 
would  be  absurd  and  unjust  to  deprive  the  black  of  a  ben 
efit  ;  that  this  would  be  moreover  to  tread  under  foot  the 
rights  of  the  colonies  ;  — 

By  the  Council  of  Guiana,  that  the  work  could  only  re 
sult  from  time  and  patience  ;  that  it  was  necessary  to  post 
pone  indefinitely  all  legislative  measures. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  this  benefit  which  was  to  be 

*  Official  proceedings  of  the  commission  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  1838, 
for  the  examination  of  the  proposition  of  M.  Passy.  I  am  indebted  to  the  Duke 
dc  Broglie  for  access  to  these  reports. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  G5 

gradually  transformed  by  time  and  patience  ?  Where  were 
the  colonies  after  two  centuries  of  a  patience  assuredly 
unequalled  ?  Had  the  blending  of  the  races  been  wrought  ? 
Had  civilization  advanced  ? 

In  1855,  there  was  at  Martinico  *  one  marriage  in  137 
whites,  one  in  221  free  blacks,  one  in  5,577  slaves. 

At  Guadaloupe,  198  marriages  in  31,252  freemen,  and  14 
marriages  in  96,803  slaves. 

At  Bourbon,  284  marriages  in  36,803  freemen,  and  0  mar 
riage  in  69,296  slaves. 

At  Guiana,  a  commission  appointed  in  the  Colonial  Coun 
cil,  about  the  same  epoch,  to  examine  a  projected  ordinance 
on  emancipation,  Article  4  of  which  prescribed  that  fathers 
or  mothers  should  not  be  emancipated  without  their  chil 
dren,  nor  husbands  without  their  wives,  had  rejected  the 
article  for  this  reason  :  — 

"  The  quality  of  father,  among  slaves,  is  till  now  a  fact 
indicated  by  no  proof,  unless  by  the  allegation  of  whoever 
may  choose  it,  since  no  legal  bond  exists  between  the  man 
and  woman.  The  benediction  given  by  the  Church  to  a 
few  unions  forced  among  them,  often  without  the  consent 
or  knowledge  of  the  masters,  likewise  demonstrates  nothing 
certain,  and  cannot  produce  on  the  slave  an  effect  which  it 
does  not  produce  on  the  freeman."  (The  slave  not  being 
authorized,  like  the  freeman,  to  contract  marriage  before  the 
officer  of  civil  state.)  "Otherwise,"  says  the  speaker,  "  in 
virtue  of  his  pretended  ties  of  parentage,  a  slave  might 
claim  his  companions  as  his  children  or  his  progenitors,  his 
father  and  mother,  and  thus  procure  them  their  liberty,  de 
spite  the  master." 

Aristotle  is  again  stigmatized,  for  he  supposed,  three 
thousand  years  ago,  that  there  might  be  inequality  of  soul 
between  the  races  ;  this  is  what  Christians  voted  in  the 
nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

*  De  FEsclavage,  by  M.  Castelli,  apostolic  prefect  of  Martinico,  1844. 

E 


66  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Such  language  was  well  calculated  to  make  it  the  right 
and  duty  of  the  mother  country  to  go  on  and  interfere  open 
ly,  without  expecting  anything  of  the  blindness  which  in 
spired  these  base  and  selfish  words.  This  part  was  taken 
resolutely  by  the  new  minister,  March  1,  1840,  and  was  an 
nounced  by  him,  in  answer  to  an  interrogation,  on  the  13th 
of  May,  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

On  the  proposition  of  Admiral  Roussin,  a  commission  was 
named,  March  26,  1840,  to  look  in  the  face  the  question  of 
the  abolition  of  slavery.  This  was  composed  of  the  Duke 
de  Broglie,  Count  de  Saint-Cricq,  Marquis  d'Audiffret,  and 
Rossi,  peers  of  France  ;  -Count  de  Sade,  MM.  Wustemberg, 
de  Tracy,  Hippolyte  Passy,  de  Tocqueville,  Bignon,  Reynard, 
and  Galos, 'deputies  ;  Vice-Admiral  de  Mackau,  Rear-Admiral 
de  Moges,  MM.  Jubelin,  de  Saint-Hilaire,  and  Mestro.  The 
Duke  de  Broglie  was  president  and  framer  of  the  report. 
Interrogating  facts  with  the  most  scrupulous  minuteness, 
without  ceasing  firmly  to  maintain  principles,  unravelling 
justice  and  injustice  through  interests,  it  attained  decisive 
and  practical  conclusions,  which  it  embodied  in  two  dis 
tinct  bills,  the  one  of  progressive  emancipation,  the  other 
of  simultaneous  emancipation.  The  superior  statesman  who 
directed  these  long  labors,  M.  de  Broglie,  has  summed 
them  up  in  a  celebrated  report.  The  learning  of  the  juris 
consult,  the  experience  of  the  economist,  the  far-sighted 
ness  of  the  political  legislator,  the  talent  and  method  of  the 
finished  writer,  and  everywhere,  above  all,  the  tone  of  the 
upright  man  and  Christian,  make  of  this  great  work  a  mas 
terpiece  which  forever  honors  the  author  and  France. 

The  commission  and  the  framer  of  the  report  have  mer 
ited  m.uch  of  humanity. 

The  assemblage  of  the  official  proceedings,  the  vast  col 
lection  of  reports  and  documents  gathered  together  by  the 
commission,  form  a  precious  repertory,  like  unto  those  mon 
uments  of  learning  and  jurisprudence  raised  up  by  the 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  67 

hands  of  our  great  jurisconsults  to  serve  as  a  mine  and 
guide  to  all  legislation. 

The  following  is  a  brief  summary  of  the  labor  of  the 
commission,  the  report,  and  the  proposed  bill. 

From  the  beginning,  M.  de  Broglie  lighted  the  torches 
that  were  to  illumine  his  course,  —  Christian  philosophy  and 
practical  experience.  He  united  in  a  few  pages,  as  in  a 
solid  phalanx,  all  the  great  motives  of  religion,  of  con 
science,  of  reason,  and  of  right,  that  condemn  slavery  ;  * 
then,  passing  rapidly  on,  so  simple  is  the  cause  and  so 
certain  the  victory  before  God  and  the  modern  mind, 
he  went  straight  to  facts,  and  painted  with  a  bold  hand 
the  acquired  results  of  the  English  experiment,  f  He  con 
cluded  this  preamble  by  demonstrating  that  so  great  an 
example  was  decisive,  but  above  all  inevitable  ;  that,  from 
day  to  day,  flight  might  give  our  slaves  to  the  emancipated 
possessions  of  England,  and  war  might  give  them  our 
colonies  themselves.  Moreover,  compromises  would  not 
enlighten  the  colonists,  but  ruin  them  ;  they  would  not 
elevate  the  slaves,  but  agitate  them.  The  time  had  come 
to  have  done  with  these. 

Before  all  things,  it  was  necessary  to  take  care  that 
emancipation  did  not  disturb  the  moral  and  material  order 
of  the  colonies.  J  Now,  in  conferring  rights  on  the  slaves, 
we  took  away  duties  from  the  masters  ;  the  liberty  of  the 
one  involved  the  liberty  of  the  other.  It  was  important 
that  the  authority  of  the  state  should  replace  both  the 
watchfulness  and  the  kindness  of  the  masters  ;  their  watch 
fulness,  by  increasing  the  number  of  courts  of  justice,  § 
garrisons,  ||  and  prisons, ^[  and  by  preparing  new  regulations 
of  order  and  police ;  **  their  kindness,  by  multiplying  schools 
and  hospitals. ff  It  was  important,  above  all,  to  develop 
moral  order,  and  to  this  end  to  organize  worship  more 

*  Pp.  4-8.  t  Pp.  8-70.  t  P.  71.  §  P.  84. 

||  P.  78.  1  P.  91.  **  P.  103.  ft  P.  125. 


68  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

completely,  to  obtain  the  erection  of  bishoprics,  to  have 
recourse,  in  fine,  to  a  wider  diffusion  of  those  divine  princi 
ples  of  Christianity  which  are  precisely  fitted  to  emancipate 
man  from  servitude  of  all  kinds,  by  teaching  him  volunta 
rily  to  impose  on  his  reconquered  liberty  the  light  and  easy 
burden  of  moral  duties. 

These  objects  fill  the  first  part  of  the  work.  The  second 
part  is  devoted  to  the  interest  of  the  slaves.* 

There  was  to  choose  between  three  systems, — immediate 
emancipation,  deferred  but  simultaneous  emancipation,  and 
progressive  emancipation. 

Immediate  liberty  was  objectionable  in  that  it  delivered 
without  transition  the  child  to  abandonment,  the  adult  to 
idleness,  the  aged  to  destitution.  Liberty  preceded  by  an 
apprenticeship  left  the  slave  in  an  uncertainty  as  to  his 
fate,  which  he  might  be  tempted  to  abuse,  as  it  might  be 
abused  against  him.  This  intermediate  system  had  been 
attempted  in  the  English  colonies,  but  had  not  been  per 
sisted  in  to  the  end.  To  emancipate  children  and  the  aged, 
and  to  leave  adults  to  emancipate  themselves  by  their  econ 
omy,  was  to  create  mixed  families,  children  without  parents 
and  parents  without  children  ;  to  choose  for  adults  an  inter 
minable  path,  as  was  proved  by  the  example  of  Spain  ;  to 
disorganize  labor  by  mingling  slaves  and  freemen  together 
on  the  plantations,  and  securing  to  the  latter  only  their 
worst  workmen.  The  majority  of  the  commission  found  it 
preferable  to  fix  a  delay  of  ten  years,  after  which  freedom 
would  be  universal,  and  during  which  all  measures  would 
be  taken  among  the  slave  population  to  prepare  the  family 
by  marriage,  property  by  savings,  savings  by  the  institution 
of  one  free  day  in  the  week,  morality  by  religion,  and  intel 
ligence  by  instruction. 

The  third  part  of  the  report  considers  emancipation  in  its 
relations  with  the  interests  of  the  colonists. f 

*  Pp.  235-343.  t  Pp-  130-235. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  69 

These  interests  were  reduced  to  soliciting,  —  1st,  a  delay; 
2d,  protective  duties  ;  3d,  measures  securing  labor. 

1.  Why  a  delay?     The  slaves  had  already  waited  two 
centuries,  and  the  burdens  of  the  transition  would  be  borne 
by  the  state.     The  necessity  of  effecting  the  liquidation  of 
numerous  colonial  estates  was  the  reply.     How  pay  wages 
without  money,  and  where  was  money  to  be  found  ?      In 
savings  ?     The  colonists  had  none.    In  loans  ?    The  planta 
tions  were  almost  all  hypothecated.      In  indemnity  ?      It 
would  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  creditors.     In  order  that 
the  colonists  or  their  creditors,  regularly  in  possession  of 
the  liquidated  property,  might  be  able  to  devote  the  indem 
nity  or  new  capital  to  labor,  a  law  was  needed  that  should 
apply  to  Martiriico  and  Guadaloupe  the  forced  expropriation 
which  was  practised  only  at  Bo'urbon.     This  law  was  to  be 
prepared,  adopted,  then  executed.     A  delay  was  therefore 
indispensable. 

2.  The  commission  likewise  regarded  as  equitable  a  pro 
visory  increase  of  the  protective  duties   on  colonial  prod 
ucts,  in  order  to  maintain  the  price  of  the  latter,  especially 
of  sugar,    already   so  much  threatened  by  the   rivalry   of 
native   sugar,   and  evidently   exposed  to  the  danger  of  a 
diminution  in  the  quantity  produced. 

3.  As  to  indemnity,  it  was  based  upon  no  right.     More 
limited,  more  variable,  more  onerous,  more  precarious  than 
other  kinds   of  property,   even  in  the  eyes  of  those  who 
recognized  it,  this  right  was  held  as  naught  by  the  commis 
sion.     But  the  good  faith  of  owners,  above  all,  the  interests 
of  labor,  and  also  the  complicity  of  the  laws  and  the  state, 
permitted  the  admission  of  an  indemnity  which  should  par 
take  of  the  nature  of  a  fine  and  a  tax.     Upon  what  basis 
should  this  be  fixed  ?     Not  in  the  arbitrary  setting  up  of 
indirect  damages  involved  by  the  measure,  but  upon  the 
average  value   of  the  slaves  during  ten  years,  —  a  value 
nearly  the  same  in  our  different  colonies,  —  and  estimated 


70  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

largely  at  1,200  francs  per  head,*  which  exacted,  for 
250,000  slaves,  a  sum  of  300,000,000  francs.  How  was  this 
to  be  paid  ?  It  was  somewhat  shrewdly  calculated,  that,  by 
immediately  paying  half  to  the  colonists,  the  state  would 
also  become  co-proprietor  of  the  slaves,  and  would  be 
consequently  entitled  to  half  their  labor  during  the  two 
years  preceding  emancipation  ;  whence  it  was  concluded 
that  giving  up  this  half  to  the  colonists  would  be  pay 
ing  them  a  value  equal  in  kind  to  half  the  indemnity,  and 
would  thus  release  the  state  from  it.  It  sufficed,  there 
fore,  to  enter  to  the  indebtedness  of  the  state  the  interest 
of  a  capital  of  150,000,0.00  at  four  per  cent,  or  6, 000,000  f 
francs,  which  interest  was  to  be  left  in  deposit  from  1853 
to  the  moment  of  emancipation,  through  precaution,  for  the 
sake  of  the  creditors,  whose  claims  might  not  be  liquidated, 
of  the  slaves,  whose  lot  would  be  sad  indeed  if  their 
masters,  ceasing  to  have  any  care  in  the  matter,  should  no 
longer  find  it  for  their  interest  to  preserve  them,  and, 
lastly,  of  the  state,  which  would  have  indemnified  to  no 
purpose  if,  before  ten  years,  some  unforeseen  event  should 
modify  the  law.  In  short,  it  was  to  make  the  slaves  them 
selves  pay  in  part  for  their  liberty,  and  to  exonerate  the 
state,  as  the  family  of  a  child  pays  for  his  apprentice 
ship  by  giving  time  in  default  of  money.  The  indemnity 
was  to  be  apportioned  among  the  colonies  by  the  pro  rata 
of  their  population  ;  then  again  apportioned  among  the  col 
onists,  not  per  head,  but,  as  was  more  just  to  the  small 
proprietors,  according  to  age,  sex,  etc.,  in  accordance  with 
detailed  regulations  to  be  established  by  royal  ordinances. 
Invalids  already  a  burden  on  their  masters  were  to  con 
tinue  such. 

*  In  the  English  colonies,  they  were  valued  at  1,400  francs  a  head;  but  this 
did  not  include  children  under  six  years  old,  who  were  declared  free  without 
indemnity.  This  difference  brings  back  the  sum  to  about  the  same  amount. 

t  M.  de  Broglie  calculated  that  the  saving  from  the  sinking  fund,  pledged 
till  1853  for  previous  deficits  and  for  the  public  works,  would  permit  the  reim- 
bursal  in  two  years  of  the  capital  of  the  indemnity. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  .  71 

i 

4.  The  experience  of  England  proved  the  necessity  of 
taking  measures  in  advance  to  secure  labor  after  emancipa 
tion.  The  indemnity  was  designed  that  labor  should  not 
lack  wages.  What  should  be  done  that  wages  should  not 
lack  labor,  or  that  wages,  becoming  exaggerated,  should  not 
swallow  up  capital,  two  paths  leading  equally  to  the  same 
abyss,  —  absolute  ruin  ? 

"  In  no  country  does  man  labor  beyond  his  wants  ;  in  no 
country  does  man  labor  willingly  for  another,  when  he  can 
labor  for  himself. "  Now  there  was  reason  to  fear  that  the 
negro,  having  few  wants,  easily  satisfied  in  this  beautiful 
climate,  would  labor  but  little.  In  the  English  colonies 
this  anxiety  had  not  been,  in  general,  confirmed  ;  the  negro 
had  shown  himself  active,  industrious,  a  lover  of  comfort 
and  luxury,  or  avaricious,  much  rather  than  idle  or  lazy. 
But  having  to  choose  between  field-labor,  so  toilsome  to  him 
and  so  truly  irksome,  and  labor  in  the  city,  offering,  with 
better  wages,  the  attraction  of  novelty,  —  having  to  choose 
between  labor  on  the  property  of  another,  and  the  easy 
acquirement  of  a  portion  of  the  uncultivated  lands  found 
in  almost  all  the  colonies,  with  the  joy  of  being  at  home, 
and  living  there  for  himself,  —  would  not  the  negro  fly  the 
land,  the  mere  aspect  of  which  filled  his  memory  with  all 
the  terrors  of  slavery  ?  The  abandonment  of  the  plantations 
in  all  the  colonies  of  extended  territory,  the  emigration 
from  one  colony  to  another  in  search  of  better  wages,  such 
were  the  two  perils  which  the  commission  proposed  to 
conjure  down  by  suspending  emancipation  for  five  years, 
and  imposing  on  the  freed  slaves  an  obligation  to  enter  into 
a  written  engagement  for  the  same  length  of  time,  leaving 
them,  moreover,  the  free  choice  of  master,  proper  occupation, 
and  conditions ;  the  freed  slave  who  found  no  engagement 
was  to  be  employed  on  the  public  works,  and  he  who 
refused  to  make  one  was  threatened  with  forced  labor 
under  surveillance.  These  conditions,  borrowed  from  the 


72  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

code  of  Hayti,  effected  a  prudent  transition,  which  the 
commission  deemed  sufficient  to  maintain  labor,  without 
forcing  an  exaggerated  rise  of  wages,  the  minimum  and 
maximum  rates  of  which  it  empowered  government  to  fix 
in  privy  council,  and  perhaps  without  having  recourse  to 
the  costly  and  complicated  system  of  immigration. 

To  give  sanction  to  the  proposed  measures,  it  had  ap 
peared  indispensable  to  prepare  a  new  statute  on  the 
judicial  organization  of  the  colonies.  To  this  statute,  which 
remained  to  be  made,  as  well  as  the  law  on  forced  expro 
priation,  the  commission  added  a  statute*  on  the  political 
constitution  of  the  colonies,  the  text  of  which  it  proposed, 
excluding  all  freed  slaves  from  political  rights.  Before 
possessing  the  quality  of  a  citizen,  it  wished  them  always 
to  have  exercised  the  rights  and  duties  of  a  man. 

Lastly,  with  the  bill  of  simultaneous  emancipation  adopt 
ed  by  the  majority,  the  commission  presented  the  bill  of 
progressive  emancipation,  preferred  by  the  minority.  Of 
the  forty-one  articles  which  composed  it,  twenty-three  were 
the  same  as  those  of  the  majority.  It  differed,  — 

1.  In  extending  from  ten  to  twenty  years  the  duration  of 
the  intermediate  regime  ; 

2.  In  allowing  a  premium  to  adult  slaves  who  should  con 
tract  marriage  during  this  delay,  to  aid  in  their  redemption  ; 

3.  In  freeing  infirm  slaves,  not  all  at  once,  after  the  ex 
piration  of  the  delay,  but  in  proportion  as  their  incapacity 
for  labor  should  be  proved,  and  according  'an  alimentary 
pension  to  the  colonist  chargeable  with  their  support ; 

4.  In  freeing  immediately  all  children  born  and  under  the 
age  of  seven,  or   to  be  born,   estimating  at  five  hundred 
francs  the  indemnity  to  be  paid  the  master  for  the  price  of 
the  child  and  his  education ;  these  children  to  be  reared  at 
the  expense  of  the  state,  and,  when  old  enough  to  work, 
apprenticed  to  their  mothers'  masters,  or  placed  in  the  pub 
lic  establishments. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  73 

More  favorable  to  the  slaveholders  than  the  first  bill,  and 
less"  onerous  to  the  state,  since  it  estimated  the  sacrifices 
which  it  demanded  of  the  treasury  at  80,000,000  francs  only, 
apportioned  over  twenty  years,  this  second  bill  was  objec 
tionable  in  that  it  retarded  emancipation  almost  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  and  thus  subjected  it  to  unforeseen  events,  and 
during  this  time  transformed  all  children  into  foundlings, 
pledging  them  to  an  apprenticeship  strongly  resembling 
servitude^  and  giving  them  for  a  mother  a  slave  woman, 
scarcely  free  to  love  them,  scarcely  worthy  their  respect,  and 
for  a  father  the  state,  a  far-off  tutor,  thinking  little  of  their 
youthful  age  and  liberty. 

The  bill  of  the  majority  had  also  the  defect  of  but  half 
accomplishing  the  work,  and  leaving  it  for  ten  years  face  to 
face  with  the  impatience  of  the  slaves  and  the  disquietude 
of  the  masters.  But  this  transition  seemed  indispensable, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  manage  it  with  more  justice,  intel 
ligence,  and  prudence. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  commission  of  1840  was  the  tri 
bunal  which  decided  the  abolition  of  slavery  beyond  ap 
peal.  After  its  sentence,  the  thing  was  judged,  and  naught 
remained  but  to  execute  the  decree. 

Why  was  this  execution  retarded  ?. 

This  question  was  put  to  the  government  January  23, 
1844,*  and  it  was  replied,  that  the  bill  would  be  taken  up 
in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks.  The  same  day,  a  petition, 
signed  by  7,126  workmen  of  Paris  and  1,704  workmen  of 
Lyons,  in  *all  8,830  persons,  for  the  immediate  abolition  of 
slavery,  was  brought  before  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  The 
session  of  May  4,  when  it  was  'presented,  showed  clearly 
how  far  the  report  of  M.  de  Broglie  had  reanimated  the 
opposition  of  the  adversaries  of  emancipation  at  the  same 
time  with  the  efforts  of  its  partisans.  The  Chamber,  had 

*  By  MM.  de  Gfosparin  and  Sade.     The  report  of  the  Duke  de  Broglie  bears 
date  March,  1843.     (Revue  coloniale,  1844,  Tom.  II  pp.  231,  233.) 
4 


74  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES 

the  pain  of  hearing  a  report  against  emancipation  ;  the  colo 
nial  delegates  still  ardently  maintaining  that  this  great  act 
of  justice  would  lead  the  colonies  to  ruin  and  the  slaves  to 
barbarism,  and  the  Minister  of  the  Marine  speaking  of  new 
delays  and  of  the  intention  of  the  government  to  seek  in 
dilatory  measures  a  preparation  deemed  necessary  before 
adopting  the  resolutions  of  the  colonial  commission.*  But 
humanity  was  avenged  by  an  admirable  reply  of  M.  Agenor 
de  Gasparin  ;  in  answer  to  the  pressing  questions  of  M. 
Ledru-Rollin  and  M.  de  Tracy,  M.  Guizot  affirmed  anew  that 
it  was  the  steadfast  design  of  the  government  to  abolish 
slavery ;  yet,  despite  the  commission,  the  Chamber  voted 
the  reference  of  the  petition  to  the  ministry. f 

Nevertheless,  the  persistence  of  the  legislative  power 
resulted  only  in  determining  the  government  to  adopt  the 
one  or  the  other  of  the  bills  proposed  by  the  colonial  -com 
mission  ;  but  it  at  least  dete-rmined  it  to  propose  serious  pre 
paratory  measures  without  delay. 

In  fact,  on  the  44th  of  May,  1844,  a  bill  was  presented  to 
the  Chamber  of  Peers,  designed  to  amend  the  statute  of 
April  23,  1833.  It  is  well  known  that  this  statute,  which 
organizes  the  political  regime  of  the  colonies,  distinguishes 
between  matters  whigh  are  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
law,  such  as. measures  relating  to  civil  and  political  rights 
(Art.  2)/  to  commerce,  etc.,  and  those  which  may  be  decid 
ed  by  royal  ordinances,  colonial  councils,  or  their  authorized 
delegates,  such  as  administrative  organization,  the  censor 
ship  of  the  press,  etc.  (Art.  3). 

The  bill  proposed  to  elaborate  and  define  some  of  the  sec 
tions  indicating  the  measures  of  the  second  category. 

Thus,  to  paragraph  3,  framed  in  this  wise :  — 

*  One  of  the  reasons  of  postponement  was  perhaps  the  fearful  disaster  of 
which  Guadaloupe  was  the  victim  on  the  8th  of  February,  1843,  the  earthquake 
which,  much  more  violent  than  that  which  overthrew  Fort  Royal  (Martinico) 
in  1839,  destroyed  1,222  houses  and  a  great  number  of  lives.  * 

t  fievie  coloniale,  1844,  Tom.  III.  p.  127. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  75 

"Ameliorations  to  be  introduced  into  the  conditions  of 
persons  not  free,  which  shall  be  compatible  with  acquired 
rights  "  ;  -  . 

The  bill  added,  - 

"  And  in  particular  on  the  support  and  maintenance  due  the 
slaves  from  their  masters ; 

"  On  the  system  of  penal  labor  ; 

"  On  the  fixing  of  hours  for  labor  and  repose ; 

"  On  the  marriage  of  persons  not  free,  and  tJieir  religious 
and  elementary  instruction ; 

"  On  the  money  acquired  by  slaves  and  their  right  of  redemp 
tion." 

To  paragraph  7,  which  reads  :  — 

"  On  the  penal  regulations  applicable  to  persons  not  free, 
in  all  cases  which  do  not  demand  capital  punishment "  ;  — 

The  bill  added,  - 

"  And  the  penalties  applicable  to  masters  in  case  of  their 
infraction  of  their  obligations  towards  their  slaves." 

Lastly,  it  committed  to  the  government,  by  an  amend 
ment  to  Art.  II.  §  4,  the  right  of  enacting  by  ordinance 
on  the  creation  of  new  justices  of  the  peace  and  the  compo 
sition  of  courts  of  assizes,  charged  with  applying  the  new 
penalties. 

We  see  that  this  bill  prescribed  nothing.  It  gave  three 
things,  —  to  the  slaves  a  promise,  to  the  masters  a  threat,  to 
the  government  a  power.  At  first  laid  aside  without  dis 
cussion,  then,  taken  up  again  on  the  motion  of  M.  Beugnot, 
seconded  by  M.  Montalembert,*  it  was  deliberated  on  by  a 
commission  with  M.  Merilhou  for  chairman, f  and  became 
the  subject  of  an  animated  debate.  If  the  emancipation  were 
combated  b}'  strange  arguments,  as,  for  instance,  the  humil 
iation  of  yielding  to  the  example  of  England,  and  the  aver- 

*  Session  of  Feb.  5,  1845. 

t  Members:  Messrs.  Laplagne-Barris,  Vice- Admiral  Bergeret,  Duke  de  Brog- 
lie.  Rossi,  Baron  Dupin,  Marquis  d'Audiffret,  Merilhou.  The  discussion  com 
menced  on  the  3d  of  April. 


76  THE  FEENCH   COLONIES. 

age  duration  of  the  life  of  the  slaves,  who  were  declared  to 
live  longer  than  the  whites,  doubtless  as  domestic  animals 
live  longer  than  those  at  liberty,  because  better  cared  for, 
the  great  cause  found  a  most  eloquent  defender  in  M.  Mon- 
talembert. 

"  I  declare,"  said  he,  "  that  we  pure  abolitionists  wish 
for  immediate  measures,  while  the  circumspect  abolitionists 
and  the  temperate  abolitionists  wish  for  nothing  at  all.  We 
find  all  the  transitionary  measures  good  and  acceptable, 
even  when  they  seem  to  us  insufficient.  It  is  quite  different 
with  our  rivals,  who  reject  them  all  without  distinction. 

"  As  to  the  national  honor,  as  to  the  political  influence 
of  England,  to  which  is  attributed  the  design  of  imposing 
emancipation  upon  us,  I  think  that  quite  the  opposite  argu 
ment  may  be  built  on  this  foundation. 

"  The  humiliation  to  France  will  be  found  in  the  atti 
tude  of  England,  ^vho  will  stand  before  history,  before  pos 
terity,  and  say,  pointing  the  finger  of  contempt  towards 
France,  '  Behold  the  liberal  nation  which  pretended  to  free 
the  world  !  Not  only  have  I  preceded  her  in  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  negroes,  but  she  has  not  even  dared  follow  me, 
shunning  my  mistakes  and  profiting  by  my  lessons/  ' 

Under  the  influence  of  these  generous  words,  and  thanks 
to  the  able  defenders  of  the  same  principle,  such  as  MM. 
Passy,  Beugnot,  and  de  Tascher,  the  scheme  was  changed. 
However  great  was  the  embarrassment  of  incorporating  into 
a  law  details  varying  with  the  climate,  —  for  instance,  of  fix 
ing  the  hour  when  the  day's  labor  should  begin  and  end, 
without  being  able  to  fix  the  hour  when  the  sun  should  rise 
and  set  in  each  colony,  —  the  Chamber  resolutely  deter 
mined  to  go  further  than  the  government,  and  to  prescribe 
thenceforth  several  measures  by  law  which  the  bill,  content 
ing  itself  with  pointing  out,  referred  to  future  regulations. 
The  government  had  the  good  sense  to  enter  into  the  views 
of  the  Chamber,  and  to  rally  to  the  support  of  its  propositions. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  77 

Thus,  not  only  the  concession  to  the  slaves  of  one  free  day 
in  a  week,  and  the  principle  of  the  reunion  of  wedded  slaves 
belonging  to  different  masters,  were  added  to  the  measures 
indicated  in  the  original  bill,  but,  instead  of  promises,  pos 
itive  decisions  on  the  duration  of  labor,  the  allowance  of 
a  piece  of  ground,  the  right  to  personal  property,  obliga 
tory  redemption,  followed  by  the  prescription  of  a  quinquen 
nial  engagement,  the  right  to  instruction  and  worship,  the 
observance  of  the  Sabbath,  the  penalties  applicable  to  mas 
ters,  the  number  of  justices  of  the  peace,  and  the  composi 
tion  of  assize  courts.,  were  inscribed  in  the  bill. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies,  impressed  by  the  bill  of  the 
19th  of  April,*  persevered  in  this  course.  Warmly  sus 
tained  by  MM.  de  Tocqueville,  de  Gasparin,  and  de  Game", 
and  fully  explained  by  the  chairman,  M.  de  Lasteyrie,  the 
government  commissioner,  M.  Galos,  and  the  Minister  of  the 
Marine,  M.  de  Mackau,  the  law  was  adopted  by  193  votes 
against  52,  and  was  promulgated  July  18,  1845. 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion,  the  Chamber  had  obtained 
explanations  of  the  government  concerning  the  possession 
of  slaves  by  the  magistrates,  and  promises  that  the  bill 
of  forced  expropriation  would  be  resumed,  that  the  meas 
ures  adopted  would  be  erelong  extended  to  Senegal,  that 
the  last  vestiges  of  the  slave-trade  in  Algeria  should  disap 
pear,  and,  lastly,  that  the  slaves  of  the  government,  number 
ing  1,469,  should  be  freed. 

This  law  definitively  realized  the  greater  part  of  the  salu 
tary  measures  which,  according  to  the  report  of  M.  de 
Broglie,  were  to  find  place  in  the  preparatory  delay  of  ten 
years.  Several  of  these  measures  were  already  in  local 
usage,  but  they  became  laws.  The  slave  could  hold  prop 
erty.  The  slave  could  obtain  his  freedom  by  paying  his 

*  Members  of  the  Commission:  MM.  Odillon-Barrot,  de  Tracy,  Ternaux- 
Compans,  de  Carne*,  de  Golbdry,  d'Haussonville,  de  Las  Casas,  Delessert;  Jules 
de  Lasteyrie,  Chairman. 


78  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

ransom,  with   or  against  his  master's  will ;  if  married,  he 
could  rejoin  his  wife  ;  he  was  therefore  no  longer  a  chattel, 
but  a  human  being  capable  of  elevating  himself  to  person 
ality,  property,  and  family.     Slavery,  as  M.  Passy  said,  be 
came  serfhood,  the  rights  over  the  person  were  transformed 
into  rights  over  labor.     Lastly,  the  state  was  charged  and 
called  upon  more  and  more  to  intervene  ;  men  were  weary 
of  leaving  the  matter  to  the  colonists,  who  refused  every 
thing,  and  to  time,  which  resolved  nothing. 

A  second  bill,  presented  a  few  days  after,  and  referred  by 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  to   the  same   commission  as  the 
first,   proposed   a  credit   appropriated  to   the   introduction 
of  European  farm-laborers  into  the  colonies.     Passed,  not 
without  opposition,   in   both   Chambers,  after  two  remark 
able  reports  by  MM.  d'Haussonville  and  de  Gabriac,  the 
appropriation    was    happily   increased    to    400,000    francs, 
designed  to   encourage  and  perfect  redemption,   especially 
in  case  of  the  redemption  of  a  husband  without  his  wife, 
a   son  without  his  father,   an   ill-treated   slave,  etc.     The 
sum    total   of  the   appropriation  was   930,000  francs,  thus 
apportioned  :  — 

For  the  introduction  into  the  colonies  of  European  artisans      Francs, 
and  farm-laborers      .        .         .         .        .        .       ...     120,000 

For  tlie  formation,  by  means '  of  free  and  paid  labor,  of 
agricultural  establishments,  serving  as  workshops  and 

schools      .         .         .         . 360,000 

For  the  valuation  of  the  personal  property  and  real  estate 

of  Guiana  * 50,000 

To  aid  in  the  redemption  of  slaves,  by  the  judgment  of 
the  administration,  and  in  conformity  with  royal  ordi 
nances,  to  be  decreed 400,000 


Total       ...         .         .         .         .         .     930,000 

These  two  statutes,  which  bear  date  the  18th  and  19th 
of  July,  1845,  appeared  in  the  Moniteur  on  the  same  day, 

*  This  was  necessarily  renounced. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  79 

with  a  third  statute,  bearing  date  the  19th  of  July,  and 
appropriating  extraordinary  sums  for  the  support  of  the 
naval  station  on  the  coast  of  Africa.* 

These  statutes  were  real  progress.  Nevertheless,  the 
great  word  was  not  yet  spoken ;  they  mitigated  slavery, 
they  did  not  abolish  it. 

"The  result  of  the  acquirement  of  property  by  slaves, 
and  their  redemption,"  said  M.  de  Broglie,  "will  be  good, 
moral,  an  amelioration,  as  it  were,  of  the  system  of  slavery ; 
but,  as  a  means  of  emancipation,  it  is  almost  illusory.  For 
two  hundred  years  this  system  has  existed  in  the  Spanish 
colonies,  without  producing  there  even  an  appreciable 

effect Ask  yourselves  what  would  be  the  result  in 

France,  if  you  should  put  a  day-laborer  without  property 
in  this  position  of  being  unable  to  acquire  a  privilege 
except  at  the  price  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  francs  ? 
He  would  never  acquire  it.  The  number  of  slaves  who 
succeed  in  purchasing  themselves  from  their  own  savings 
will  not  probably  amount  to  one  hundred  in  ten  years,  to 

one  hundred  and  fifty  in  twenty  years I  think  the 

law  good,  as  a  law  which  will  some  day  ameliorate  the  con 
dition  of  the  blacks,  and  render  them  worthy  of  liberty. 
But  I  do  not  wish  any  one  to  draw  from  this  law  the  con 
clusion  that  all  is  done,  and  that  now  you  have  emancipated 
the  slaves  as  far  as  you  can,  or  wish  to  do  ;  for  in  reality,  as 

to  emancipation,  you  have  done  nothing If  no  more 

were  ever  done,  slavery  would  be  perpetual." 

Haste  was  made  at  least  to  accomplish  what  had  been 
voted.  The  government  might  have  waited  before  promul 
gating  the  laws  for  the  drawing  up  of  the  executory  ordi 
nances  ;  it  deserves  credit  for  having  promulgated  them 
without  delay,  after  having  sent  detailed  instructions  to 
the  colonial  governors  on  the  30th  of  July,  with  a  full 
report  of  the  debates  of  the  Chambers.  These  were 

*  Moniteur,  Aug.  3,  1845,  No.  215,  p.  2219. 


SO  TUF   ri;rv  H   001  ONIE& 

promptly    followed    b\    the    ordinances   of  tin-   'J.'ul    and   '-'tith 
of  October,   the  one  concerning   the  manner   of  fixing  the 
price  of  ransom  when  it  could  not  be  amicably  tmng«d 
tho  other  on  the  employment  of  the  appropriation  allo\\ed 
lo  ,ud  tn   lodomption.      At  length,  March  til.   ISU>.  tlu    miu 
[•tol   VTM  able  to  allinn,  in   a  report    to   the  king,  that   the 
statute  of  July  18,  1845,  Imd  been  put  into  execution  ;   that 
lal>vn  \\as  regulated  according  to  its  enactments;   that   the 
pOWOY  i'f  the  slaves  to  acquire  property,  obli^atoM   n-Jcmp- 
tion.    the    new  penalties,   and  the   new   composition  of  the 
Courts  of  Assixes,  wore>  now  in   full  vigor;   that    a  fe\\    1    i 
»opi-an  laborers  (twenty-eight  only)  had  already  emigrated  ; 
that  agricultural  establishments  hail  been  made  the  subject 
of  instructions,  August  29;  that  the  clergy  and  the  schools 
\\civ  about  to  be  increased  ;  ami  that  the  ordinances  on  dis 
cipline,  maintenance,  religious  instruction,  marriage,  lands. 
justices  of  the  peace,  and  workshops,  were  all  ready,      lie 
added,  that  these  measures  had  occasioned  some  agitation 
in    the   colonies,    but    without  serious   disturbance.      More 
o\ei,  ho  declared  that  accounts  were  expected  concerning 
slavery    in   the   Kast    Indies,   where   it   no   longer   existed 
in  Senegal,  when'   it  was   practised   only   by   the  Africans  ; 
and   in    Algeria,   where  the  slave-markets   had  ceased,  and 
\\here   but    few  sla\cs   remained.       lie  promised,  lastly,  that 
the  emancipation  of  th,  •!'  the  domain,  demanded  by 

the   Chambers,  should   begin   in    ISItJ,  and   be   accomplished 
during   live  years.* 

The  parliamentary  authorities  did  not  sutler  a  demand 
for  appropriations  to  pass  without  urging  forward  the  :;o\ 
eminent.  Interrogated  concerning  the  delay  of  the  ordi 
nances,  and  Igftia  on  the  emancipation  of  the  sla\  es  of  the 
crown  O'>l.v  ll  and  l."».  IStoV  the  government  accepted 
an  appropriation  tor  IS  17  of  I'.VOOO  francs,  proposed  for 

urban   lalu-iors    \w-io   tYoovl    in    1SU'«  vOi\lituuu-o  ot'  .'ills 
vl?    in    Innnbou,   'J'J    in  iUisulaloupo,  ami   1   in    Martinioo. 


HISTORY    ol      r.M  \\.  II-  \TIoM.  .,| 

IS  |(i    by     M.     d'llausson\  ille,     in    order     to    indemnify    UK- 
colonies  Inr  this  emancipation,    as    was    just. 

Ill  fact,  the  ordinance  ..|"  August  17,  IN  lift,  Art.  8,  had 
transferred  to  Hie  colonies  the  estates  of  tllO  Crown  ill  fait 
o//'//rr.s////;,  excepting  the  military  works,  hut  including  the 
-mv//-or.s  ami  in<>r<i/>l<;i  allachod  to  this  property. 

The  illegality  (,r  this  disposal  was  recognized,  it  being 
impossible  to  alienate  tlio  property  of  tho  ntato  by  a  Hi'inplo 
;  Hn'iu;o  it  was  only  nccoBHary  to  indemnify  the 
lor  the  enjoyiiiont  of  thcMii  of  which  thoy  wore 
drpi  ivcd,  and  to  buy  out  tho  interest  of  tho  third  partioH  to 
whom  those  ORtatcH  and  H!UVOH  in  part  were  farmed. 

KVsmiird  in  1H17  by  jtH  ptu'Hevcring1  author,  the  propo 
sition  \v;ts  discussed  anew,  and  resolved  by  the  vote  of  an 
appropriation  of  142,145  francs,  despite  tho  technical  ob- 
and  Minister  and  ridiculous  predictions  on  tho 
which  would  bo  produced^  by  tho  example  sot  by 
the  kintf  in  emancipating  those  who  were  still  called  Hit- 


"II  sugar-works  in  the  neighborhood  of  UK;  estates  of 
the  crown  wore  oil'orod  me,"  wrote  a  colonist,  "on  condi 
tion  that  I  should  Hiifl'or  my  wilo  and  children  to  reside 
then-  niter  the  crown  slaves  wore  liberated,  1  would  refuse, 
sure  that  poison  would  expiate  my  possession." 

Three  ordinances  wore  rendered  during  1840,  tho  first  on 
the  istli  of  May,  concerning  the  religious  and  elementary 
instruction  of  the  slaves  ;  tho  second  on  tho  4th  of  June, 
concerning  the  disciplinary  regime;  and  the  third  on  tho 
,r>th  of  ,  I  nne,  concerning  food,  maintenance,  and  medical 
care 

in   a  second   report,    March    "21,    1847,*   the  Minister   was 

,-il.le    to    declare    that    tin;    execution    of  the    two    statutes   of 

!8-lf>    was    everywhere    complete,    everywhere    satisfactory. 

It    lacked,    however,    several    ordinances,    especially    on    UK; 

*  Rf.vut  coloniale,  Tom.  II.  p.  026. 


82  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

marriage  of  slaves  and  the  preservation  of  the  property  of 
minors. 

A  few  months  previous,  an  ordinance,  dated  December 
9,  1846,  opened  to  the  Minister  of  the  Marine  a  credit  ex 
traordinary  of  461,000  francs,  and,  May  7,  1847,  the  gov 
ernment  declared  before  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  that  the 
hitherto  secret  object  of  this  credit  was  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves  in  our  new  possession  of  Mayotte.  2,733  indi 
viduals  of  all  ages  and  sexes  were  thus  ransomed  on  con 
dition  of  remaining  bound  to  labor  for  five  years  to  the 
state. 

On  the  19th  of  May,  1847,  the  bill  concerning  hypothe 
cation  and  the  forced  expropriation  system  in  Martinico, 
Guadaloupe,  and  Guiana,  a  plan  solicited  by  the  commission 
of  1840  and  already  presented  in  1842,  was  submitted  anew 
to  the  Chamber  of  Peers.  On  the  22d  of  May,*  the  Cham 
ber  of  Deputies  receive^  another  bill,  designed,  —  1st,  to 
compose  the  courts  of  assizes,  in  cases  taking  cognizance 
of  crimes  committed  on  or  by  slaves,  of  at  least  four  coun 
cillors  and  at  most  two  auditors,  instead  of  four  councillors 
and  three  auditors  ;  2d,  to  exact  that  the  verdict  of  guilt 
should  be  rendered  by  a  majority  of  four  votes  at  least,  in 
stead  of  five  out  of  seven.  The  rumor  of  several  scanda 
lous  acquittals  rendered  this  modification  of  Article  111 
of  the  statute  of  1845  very  urgent.  There  were,  in  1845, 
61  metropolitan  magistrates,  61  magistrates  natives  of  the 
colonies,  14  slaveholders ;  there  was  in  1847  very  nearly 
the  same  proportion. f 

This  bill,  which  was  reported  by  MM.  d'Haussonville  and 
Foy,  and  adopted  by  230  votes  out  of  234  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  became  a  law,  August  9,  1847.  The  bill  con 
cerning  expropriation  was  destined  still  to  remain  without 
result. 

*  These  two  bills  were  proposed  by  M.  Guizot  during  his  brief  passage  to  the 
Ministry  of  the  Marine, 
t  Report  of  M.  d'Haussonville. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  83 

At  the  same  time  that  the  government  pursued  the  work 
of  legislation,  on  the  sustained  provocation  of  the  parliamen 
tary  authorities,  with  the  no  less  devoted  co-operation  of  its 
superior  agents,  excited  by  the  zeal  of  a  new  Minister,  the 
Duke  de  Montebello,  it  developed  administratively  the  con 
sequences  of  the  anterior  acts.  It  published  the  good  re 
sults  of  the  system  of  patronage,  encouraged  emancipation, 
ameliorated  the  system  of  colonial  customs  and  the  sugar 
legislation,*  gave  its  attention  to  the  happy  efforts  to  let 
the  public  lands  for  a  portion  of  their  produce,  thought  of 
recruiting  labor  by  others  than  European  workingmen,  con 
tinued  to  free  the  crown  slaves,f  and,  striving  to  multiply 
the  priests,  the  brothers  de  Ploermel,  the  number  of  chapels 
and  schools,  negotiating  with  the  Trappists  for  the  estab 
lishment  of  agricultural  colleges,  it  sincerely  entreated  of 
Christianity  to  guide  the  blacks  to  make  a  good  use  of  lib 
erty  after  bringing  the  whites  to  adopt  its  principle. 

The  Christian  sense  of  right  wrought  without  relaxation 
upon  public  opinion.  A  grave  discussion  in  the  two  Cham 
bers  was  again  called  forth,  in  March  and  April,  1847,  by  a 
petition  signed  by  3  bishops,  19  vicars-general,  858  priests, 
86  pastors  of  the  Reformed  Church,  7  members  of  the  In 
stitute,  151  elective  councillors,  213  magistrates  or  ad 
vocates,  and  more  than  9,000  freeholders,  merchants,  and 
workmen. 

At  the  same  time,  the  journalists  and  publicists J  brought 
to  the  movement  the  tribute  of  their  indefatigable  efforts, 
which  the  Academy  of  Moral  Sciences  called  forth  by  its 
prizes  and  rewards. 

*  Statutes  of  1845. 

t  In  1847,  218. 

t  Situation  des  esdaves  dans  ks  colonies  f ranches,  by  M.  Kouvellat  de  Cussac, 
formerly  colonial  magistrate;  VEsclavage  coloniale,  by  M.  Carnot,  deputy;  7/w- 
toire  de  VEsclavage  pendant  les  deux  dernieres  annees,  by  M.  Schcelcher,  1847; 
Lettres  sur  PEsclavage,  by  the  Abbe"  Dugoujon;  L'Esdavage  du  paint  de  vut 
theologique,  by  the  Abbe"  de  1'Estang;  UEsdavage  dans  les  colonies,  by  M.  Wallc 


84  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

A  noble  spectacle  was  this  continual  action  of  the  Chris 
tian  conscience  of  all  parties  and  creeds  on  public  opinion, 
of  public  opinion  on  the  Chambers,  of  the  Chambers  on  the 
ruling  power,  of  the  ruling  power  on  the  colonies,  by  the 
double  ascendency  of  law  and  government. 

The  statute  of  1845,  and  the  ordinances  which  followed  it, 
had  been  no  better  received  in  the  colonies  than  the  statutes 
of  1833,  the  bills  of  1839,  and  the  questions  of  1840. 

The  Colonial  Council  of  Martinico  declared  the  bill,  before 
its  adoption,  "  odious  to  the  colonists,  fatal  to  the  colonies,  a 
new  step  towards  the  abyss  into  which  it  was  sought  to  precipi 
tate  them."  (December  16,  1844.) 

The  Colonial  Council  of  Guadaloupe  called  the  statute  "a 
measure  which  shakes  the  colonial  edifice  to  its  foundation" 
and  declared  that,  "  if  it  were  free,  it  would  again  reject  the 
right  of  slaves  to  acquire  property,  and  obligatory  redemp 
tion."  (October  24,  1845). 

This  is  what  the  colonies  thought  of  the  bill,  which  may 
be  reduced  —  to  what  ?  —  to  diminishing  the  number  of 
lashes  which  a  slave  may  receive,  to  securing  to  him  the 
right  of  owning  what  belongs  to  him,  and  the  power  of  buying 
himself  with  what  he  earns.* 

It  was  impossible,  however,  that  so  vast  a  tide  of  public 
opinion  should  not  end  by  shaking  opposition,  and  it  must 
have  indeed  been  very  powerful  to  move  the  Colonial  Coun 
cils.  Towards  the  close  of  1847,  in  fact,  they  voted  ad- 

*  Schcelcher,  1847,  Tom.  I.  p.  114.  This  impassioned,  but  well-informed  writer 
cites  prodigious  instances  of  the  intolerance  of  the  colonists.  At  Martinico, 
November  18,  1845,  fifty  copies  of  the  speech  delivered  by  Coun:  de  Beuguot, 
before  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  were  seized  as  dangerous.  On  October  2,  1843, 
the  electors  having  chosen  two  colored  men  to  the  Municipal  Council  of  Fort 
Royal,  all  Hie  members  except  two  presented  their  resignation.  In  1845,  one 
of  these  colored  men  was  made  member  of  the  Colonial  Council.  The  Gov 
ernor  thought  that  he  could  only  invite  him  to  dine  in  private.  He  refused.  In 
1846,  at  the  opening  of  a  new  session,  the  Governor  invited  this  time  all  the 
members.  Out  of  twenty-seven,  twenty-four  refused  to  sit  at  the  same  table 
with  their  colleague. 


HISTORY   OF  EMANCIPATION.  85 

dresses  to  the  king,  to  ask  a  representation  of  the  colonies 
in  the  Chamber,  and  to  propose  systems  of  immigration,  as 
sociation,  and  central  manufactures,  in  view  of  the  social 
transformation  to  which  these  Councils  had  always  refused 
to  consent,  and  in  which  they  had  so  long  refused  to  be 
lieve. 

After  thirty-three  years  of  representative  monarchy, 
things  stood  in  this  wise  at  the  beginning  of  1848. 

The  colonies  resisted  liberty,  but  they  doubted  it  no 
longer.  They  opposed  while  preparing  for  it ;  they  still 
contested  the  principle  in  order  to  flee  the  consequences, 
and  to  render  the  indemnification  more  certain  and  more 
ample.  Opposition  multiplied,  the  systematic  non-applica 
tion  of  the  regulations  and  laws  daily  created  new  argu 
ments  against  the  delusion  of  those  who  persisted  in  ex 
pecting  liberty  from  the  lessons  of  time  and  the  good-will 
of  the  masters,  and  contested  the  opportunity.  "To  wait 
is  wise,"  said  M.  de  Broglie,  appositely  cited  by  M.  de  Mon- 
talembert',  (discussion  of  the  statute  of  1845,)  "  on  condition 
we  wait  for  something  ;  but  to  wait  for  the  sake  of  waiting, 
to  wait  through  pure  carelessness  or  pure  irresolution,  for 
lack  of  possessing  enough  good  sense  and  enough  courage 
to  set  to  work,  is  the  worst  of  all  resolves  and  the  most 
certain  of  all  dangers." 

In  France,  in  Europe,  the  victory  was  complete  in  the 
public  mind.  The  public  authorities  were  agreed,  the  oppo 
sition  favorable,  the  press  unanimous,  public  opinion  and 
conscience  had  but  one  voice.  The  cause  was  so  far  gained 
that  men  were  weary  of  hearing  "of  it,  weary  of  sustaining 
it,  they  had  become  fastidious  in  evidence.  Why,  then, 
hesitate  so  long  to  take  the  last  step,  to  strike  the  last 
blow? 

This  slowness,  according  as  it  is  styled  prudence  or  inde 
cision,  is  at  once  the  virtue  or  the  defect,  the  advantage  or 
the  objection,  of  free  governments.  By  dint  of  weighing  all 


86  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

interests,  of  listening  to  all  reasons,  they  succeed  marvel 
lously  in  paving  the  way  for  the  solution  of  questions,  and 
end  with  difficulty  in  resolving  them.  Too  many  motives 
hinder  determination,  as  too  much  light  hinders  sight. 

It  is  for  the  government  to  triumph  over  the  ordinary  in 
decision  of  regular  assemblies  ;  if  it  partakes  it,  everything 
stops  short ;  the  moment  comes  when  it  is  no  longer  ques 
tions,  but  parties,  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 

In  this  question,  the  assemblies  determined  energetically, 
the  government  hesitated. 

If  slavery  had  been  abolished  on  the  morrow  of  the  re 
port  of  M.  de  Broglie,  how  many  evils  would  have  been 
avoided  ! 

The  government  of  July  was  cruelly  punished  for  its 
long  delay,  since  it  had  the  trouble  of  paving  the  way  for 
emancipation  without  the  honor  of  proclaiming  it.  So  rare 
ly  here  on  earth  does  progress  flow  peacefully  from  reason  ! 
Humanity  is  like  poets  who  compose  only  in  delirium. 

Slavery  in  the  French  colonies  was  not  abolished  until  the 
morrow  of  the  sudden  revolution  of  February,  1848. 


CHAPTER    III. 

EMANCIPATION  BY  THE   REPUBLIC   OF  1848. 

ON  the  4th  of  March,  1848,  the  provisional  government 
of  the  French  Republic  rendered  the  following  decree  :  — 

THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC. 
LIBERTY,   EQUALITY,   FRATERNITY. 

In  the  name  of  the  French  People. 

The  Provisional  Government  of  the  Republic,  considering 
that  no  French  territory  can  longer  hold  slaves, 

Decrees  :  — 

A  commission  is  instituted  by  the  provisional  Minister  of 
the  Marine  and  Colonies,  to  prepare  with  the  least  possible 
delay  an  act  of  immediate  emancipation  in  all  the  colonies 
of  the  Republic. 

The  Minister  of 'the  Marine  will  provide  for  the  execution 
of  the  present  decree. 

(Signed:)  DUPONT  (de  PEure),  GARNIER-PAG^S, 

ARAGO,  MARIE, 

LAMARTINE,  MARRAST, 

Louis  BLANC,  FLOCON, 

AD.  CREMIEUX,  ALBERT, 
LEDRU-ROLLIN, 

Members  of  the  Provisional  Government. 

Paris,  March  4,  1848. 

On  the  3d  of  March,  the  commission  was  composed,  by  a 
decree  of  M.  Arago,  as  follows  :  — 


88  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

MM.  V.  ScH(ELCHER,  Assistant   Secretary  of  State  of  the 
Colonies. 

MESTRO,  Director  of  the  Colonies. 

PERRINON,  Major  of  Naval  Artillery. 

GATINE,  Counsel  of  the  Court  of  Appeal. 

GAUMONT,  Practical  Clockmaker. 

H.  WALLON  and  L.   PERCIN,   Secretaries,  empowered 

to  discuss,  without  voting. 

On  the  6th  of  March,  the  commission  commenced  its 
labors,  which  it  continued  with  ardor  during  two  months. 

Whatever  may  be  the  judgment  of  posterity  on  the  revo 
lution  of  February,  it  must  justly  proclaim  the  generous 
impulse  which  signalized  its  beginning.  Let  us  rejoice  that 
no  moment  of  the  history  of  our  country  has  been  lacking  in 
glory.  The  blast  which  overthrow  political  oaths,  slavery, 
the  penalty  of  death  for  political  offences,  the  red  flag,  was 
assuredly  pure  and  magnanimous. 

We  recognize,  in  the  labors  of  the  commission  named  by 
the  decree  of  the  5th  of  March,  this  noble  inspiration  mingled 
with  the  inexperience,  the  prejudices,  the  Utopian  schemes, 
the  rancors,  the  passions,  which  so  soon  corrupted  the  revo 
lution  of  Februar}1-.  The  President  brought  to  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  principle  of  emancipation  the  laudable  persist 
ency  which  animates  his  writings.  But  more  eager  to  invoke 
without  understanding  the  revolutionary  tradition  than  the 
experience  of  England  and  the  studies  of  the  monarchy, 
more  anxious  to  disguise  the  negroes  as  electors  than  to 
make  them  men,  distrusting  the  religion  to  which  facts 
forced  it  to  render  homage,  the  commission  was  often  in 
need  of  being  brought  back  to  the  rules  of  political  econo 
my  by  a  mechanic,  who  combated  the  minimum  and  maxi 
mum  of  wages,*  while  extolling  the  right  to  labor  ;  by  the 
veritable  principles  of  the  honorable  author  of  that  excel 
lent  book,  L'Histoire  de  Vesclauage  dans  V antiquite  ft  and 

*  M.  Gaumont,  proces-verbaux,  pp.  87,  122. 
t  M.  Wallon.  who  was  chosen  Speaker. 


EMANCIPATION  BY   THE  KEPUBLIC   OF   1848.  89 

by  the. lamented  Director  of  the  Colonies,*  who  had  lastly 
to  struggle  at  once  against  foolhardy  experience  and  un 
skilful  obstinac}7". 

We  cannot,  in  fact,  qualify  otherwise  than  by  the  last 
word  the  attitude  of  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  and  the 
colonial  delegates,  with  a  few  exceptions,  before  the  com 
mission. 

The  letters  of  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  contained  noth 
ing  but  menaces  and  complaints. 

The  city  of  Nantes  announced  the  immediate  cessation  of 
labor  in  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  ;  "it  affirmed  that  the  decree 
might  endanger  not  only  the  commercial  interests  of  the 
mother  country  and  colonies,  but  even  the  lives  of  the 
planters."  f 

Curious  admissions  were  mingled  with  these  sombre  prog 
nostics.  The  delegate  declared  that  "the  slave-trade  had 
continued  in  Bourbon  till  1830,  and  that  consequently  the 
present  generation  of  negroes,  still  brutish,  were  incapable 
of  comprehending  the  new  duties  of  liberty,  wherefore 
serious  disorder  was  to  be  feared."  Thus  the  law  had  not 
been  respected,  nor  the  race  ameliorated.  How  then  speak 
of  the  humanity  of  the  colonists,  the  happiness  and  educa 
tion  of  the  negroes  ? 

^  The  same  dolorous  complaints  arose  from  the  Chambers 
of  Bordeaux,  Marseilles,  Lyons,  Montpellier,  Dunkirk,  St. 
Brieux,  Morlaix,  etc. 

The  complaints  and  terrors  of  the  delegates  listened  to 
by  the  commission  were  no  less  excessive.  I  do  not  dis 
pute  their  sincerity.  But  they  could  be  productive  of 
but  little  effect,  mingled  as  they  were  with  loud  protes 
tations  of  adhesion  to  the  principle  of  liberty,  and  reduced 
to  their  true  value  by  the  testimony  of  the  colonial  func 
tionaries. 

The  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Toulon  alone  alleged  that 

*  M.  Mestro.  t  Proces-verbaux,  p.  96. 


90  THE  FKENCH  COLONIES. 

emancipation  was  illegal  and  inhuman,  both  for  the  master 
and  the  laborer. 

The  abolitionists  of  yesterday  were  heard,  declaring  in 
words  that  they  desired  emancipation,  proving  by  protests 
that  they  secretly  detested  it ;  objections,  prognostics,  de 
mands  for  indemnity  and  postponement  accumulated  ;  it 
was  granted  that  liberty  was  inevitable  ;  it  was  hoped  to 
render  it  impossible.  To  the  commission  belongs  the  merit 
of  maintaining  the  great  thought  which  it  was  charged  with 
carrying  out,  despite  all  these  difficulties.  It  was  even  dis 
posed  to  deny,  which  was  not  to  resolve  them.  Happily, 
precise  information,  true  solutions,  were  furnished  by  the 
administration,  which  here,  as  elsewhere,  wisely  rendered 
so  much  service,  as  well  as  gained  so  much  power,  by  link 
ing  itself  by  practical  tradition  to  the  innumerable  govern 
ments  and  ministers  given  to  France  by  the  mobility  of  its 
revolutions.*  . 

It  was  glory  enough  for  the  Republic  to  accomplish  what 
the  monarchy  had  made  ready,  without  pursuing  the  recent 
past  with  unjust  ingratitude.  It  is  the  custom  of  heirs  of 
an  unexpected  fortune  to  execrate  the  prudent  relatives  who 
have  amassed  it  through  a  thousand  trials.  Nevertheless, 
they  do  not  long  preserve  it  without  recourse  to  the  exam 
ples  of  those  whom  they  disdain.  Such  is  too  often  the 
conduct  of  new  governments. 

The  proclamations  of  Victor  Hugues  afforded  little  infor 
mation  to  the  commission  of  1848.  Neither  did  the  useful 
attempts  of  General  Desfourneaux  to  let  the  colonial  lands 
to  negroes  for  a  portion  of  their  produce,  renewed  by  a 
projected  association  at  Guadaloupc,  present  a  more  appli 
cable  solution.  In  fact,  paid  only  at  the  end  of  the  year,  — 
held  till  then  in  constant  distrust,  exposed  to  losses  which 

*  Opinion  of  M.  Mcstro,  in  the  name  of  the  Colonial  Ministry;  of  M.  Feld- 
mann,  in  the  name  of  the  Ministry  of  War;  and  of  M.  Lavollee,  in  the  name  of 
the  Ministry  of  Commerce. 


I 

EMANCIPATION  BY  THE   REPUBLIC   OF   1848.  91 

they  did  not  comprehend,  and  to  frauds  which  they  knew 
not  how  to  avert,  —  the  negroes  regarded  this  system  as 
disguised  servitude. 

It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  project  practical  meas 
ures  and  to  prepare  bills  of  decrees  and  orders,*  the  best 
of  which  were  precisely  analogous  to  those  proposed  by 
the  commission  of  1840.  What  the  government  of  July 
had  deemed  it  prudent  to  do  before  emancipation,  the  gov 
ernment  of  February  was  constrained  to  do  after  it.  We 
cannot  long  dispense  with  common  sense,  even  when  we 
care  for  it  but  little. 

Twelve  bills  of  decrees  and  two  of  orders  were  thus  pre 
pared,  •(•  and  promulgated  simultaneously  on  the  2tth  of 
April. 

The  first  proclaimed  emancipation  ;  it  was  then  incorpo 
rated  into  Article  6  of  the  Constitution. 

"  The  commission  has  not  to  discuss  the  principle  ; 

it  lays  it  down,  it  no  longer  discusses  it.  The  Republic 
would  doubt  itself,  could  it  hesitate  for  an  instant  to  sup 
press,  slavery  ; it  would  be  false  to  its  motto  if  it  suf 
fered  slavery  to  pollute  longer  a  single  spot  of  the  territory 
over  which  its  banner  waves.  Emancipation  is  decreed  ;  it 
must  be  immediate."  J 

Two  months  were  granted  from  the  time  of  the  promul 
gation  of  the  decree  in  the  colonies,  in  order  to  effect  the 
gathering  in  of  the  year's  harvest.  But  in  the  interval,  all 
sales  of  freemen  and  all  corporal  punishment  were  inter 
dicted.  (Art.  1.) 

Slaves  condemned  to  punishment  for  deeds  which  would 
have  involved  no  penalty  if  committed  by  freemen,  were 
pardoned  ;  persons  sentenced  to  deportation  by  administra 
tive  measures,  were  recalled.  (Art.  31.) 

Everything  resembling  or  leading  back  to  slavery  under 

*  P.  185  (session  of  April  7).  t  Moniteur,  May  2,  3,  and  4. 

J  Report  of  M.  Wallon. 


92  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

disguised  forms  was  strictly  proscribed,  and  the  pollution 
of  servitude  was  effaced  both  from  the  soil  of  France  and 
the  persons  of  Frenchmen.  Thus  Article  2  suppressed  the 
system  of  bound  labor  for  a  given  time,  established  in  Sene 
gal.  Article  7  proclaimed  anew  the  ancient  principle  that 
the  soil  of  France  conferred  freedom,  and  that,  by  a  sort  of 
miracle,  the  mere  contact  with  French  territory  gave  birth 
to  liberty.  Article  8  interdicted  to  all  Frenchmen,  under 
pain  of  loss  of  citizenship,  the  purchase  or  possession  of 
slaves,  even  in  a  foreign  country,  and  accorded  a  delay  of 
but  three  years  to  those  rendered  slaveholders  by  inheri 
tance,  gift,  or  marriage. 

The  governors  or  commissioners-general  of  the  Republic 
were  charged  with  carrying  out  these  important  measures 
in  all  the  French  possessions,  expressly  including  Algeria, 
where  the  original  slavery  still  subsisted,  the  bill  of  an  or 
dinance  for  its  abolition,  dated  June  2,  1847,  not  having  yet 
been  carried  into  effect,*  and  Mayotte,  Nossi-be,  and  St. 
Mary,  where,  since  emancipation,  the  freed  slaves  had  re 
mained  bound  by  their  five  years'  engagements,  and  the 
native  masters  still  retained  the  right  of  emigrating  with 
those  of  their  slaves  who  chose  to  follow  them.f 

No  mention  was  made  of  the  East  Indian  possessions,  the 
commission  being  assured  that  slavery  had  completely  dis 
appeared  thence. 

Article  5  reserved  and  referred  to  the  National  Assembly 
the  fixing  of  the  indemnity  to  be  accorded  to  the  colonists. 

Article  6  laid  down  the  principle  of  the  representation  of 
all  the  French  possessions  in  the  National  Assembly,  which 
was  decreed  on  the  27th  of  April. 

An  immediate  letter  of  instructions  from  the  provisional 
government  fixed  the  number  of  these  representatives  as 
follows  :  — 

*  P.  21,  communication  of  M.  Feldmann. 
t  P.  5,  communication  of  M.  Mestro. 


EMANCIPATION  BY  THE  KEPUBLIC   OF   1848.  1)3 

Population.      Representatives.     Substitutes. 

Martinico      ....     126,691  3  2 

Guadaloupe       .         .         .         129,778  3  2 

Reunion  or  Bourbon     .         .105,663  3  2 

-  Guiana      .         *' •       .        .  19,495  1  1 

'  Senegal         ....       18,540  1  1 

The  East  Indian  Possessions      183,097  1  1 

The  time  of  the  elections  was  to  be  fixed  with  the  least 
possible  delay  by  the  Commissioners-General,  and  in  the 
making  up  of  lists  and  the  electoral  operations  the  same 
rules  were  to  be  followed  as  in  the  mother  country. 

The  Colonial  Councils  and  delegates  were  suppressed, 
and  the  legislative  power  was  intrusted  provisionally  to  the 
Commissioners-General  of  the  Republic,  by  two  immediate 
decrees,  prepared  by  the  commission. 

Another  decree,  promulgated  May  2,  abolished  the  cen 
sorship  of  journals  and  writings,  conferred  on  the  adminis 
trative  authority  by  Articles  44  and  49  of  the  ordinance  of 
February  9,  1827,  abolished  at  the  same  time  the  adminis 
trative  authorization,  suspension,  and  revocation,  and  ex 
tended  the  liberty  of  the  press  to  the  colonies. 

Such  was  the  political  regime.  The  surplus  of  the  meas 
ures  concerned  the  local  and  financial  regimes. 

A  decree  instituted  the  right  to  aid  of  aged  and  infirm 
persons,  orphans,  and  poor  children  ;  and  the  foundation  of 
hospitals,  infant  asylums,  infant  schools,  and  professional 
schools,  but  made  them  depend  on  very  problematical  re 
sources  ;  to  wit,  the  assessment  of  the  freed  slaves  for  the 
support  of  their  aged  and  infirm  fellow-laborers  (Arts.  1 
and  2),  and  the  product  of  the  fines  decreed  by  the  justices 
of  the  peace  and  cantonal  juries  (Art.  4). 

In  a  subsequent  decree,  the  primary,  gratuitous,  and  ob 
ligatory  instruction  of  children  of  both  sexes  was  imposed 
on  each  commune,  a  school  of  arts  and  trades  promised  to 
each  colony,  as  well  as  a  high  school  for  girls  to  Martinico 
.and  a  lyceum  to  Guadaloupe  (Arts.  10  and  11).  An  order 


94  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

for  the  foundation  of  this  lyceum  at  St.  Christopher's  was 
prepared  by  the  commission*. 

The  cantonal  juries  in  question  in  the  decree  on  the  right 
to  aid,  were  the  subject  of  another  decree.  Composed  of 
six  members,  three  chosen  from  among  the  property  hold 
ers  and  manufacturers,  and  three  from  among  the  working 
classes,  drawn  by  lot,  by  the  justice  of  the  peace,  from  the 
electoral  list  of  the  communes  of  the  canton,  two  being 
renewed  each  month,  these  juries,  presided  over  in  public 
sessions  by  the  justices  of  the  peace,  were  charged  in  each 
canton  with  conciliating  or  judging  beyond  appeal  all  differ 
ences  under  300  francs  that  might  arise  between  masters 
and  workmen,  and  with  punishing  disorders  in  the  work 
shops,  and  coalitions.  The  same  decree  (Art.  6)  abrogated 
Article  1781  of  the  Civil  Code  in  the  colonies,  declaring 
that  masters  should  be  believed  on  affirmation  in  disputes 
with  those  in  their  service. 

The  right  to  labor  and  the  organization  of  national  works 
on  the  estates  of  the  domain,  or  lands  to  be  purchased  by 
the  state,  were  the  subject  of  another  projected  decree 
and  order. 

A  decree,  likewise  followed  by  an  order  concerning  regu 
lations,  was  destined  to  suppress  vagrancy  and  mendicity 
by  means  of  penal  works  and  a  corps  of  field  overseers. 

The  government  prescribed  by  two  decrees  the  establish 
ment  of  savings  banks  in  the  colonies,  and  the  annual  cele 
bration  of  festivals  of  labor,  with  the  distribution  of  prizes 
to  laborers  designated  for  their  good  conduct  by  the  muni 
cipal  councils,  mayors,  and  justices  of  the  peace. 

The  Commissioners-General  were  charged  with  apportion 
ing  anew  the  poll-tax,  which  the  taxpayer  was  authorized 
to  pay  by  three  days'  labor,  and  to  establish  or  raise  taxes 
on  spirits  and  the  rate  of  licenses  to  venders. 

Property  in  the  colonies  was  overburdened  with  enor 
mous  debts  ;  creditors  were  the  true  property-holders. 


EMANCIPATION  BY   THE  REPUBLIC   OF   1848.  95 

From  1827,  it  had  been  repeatedly  projected  to  introduce 
forced  expropriation.  But  the  inconvenience  of  disorgan 
izing  labor  by  the  mutation  or  division  of  estates,  and  the 
difficulty  of  finding  bidders  or  capital  in  the  colonies,  had 
caused  the  postponement  of  the  measure,  the  subject  of  a 
last  bill  in  1847,  as  we  have  seen.  In  Bourbon  alone,  a  law 
had  been  promulgated  on  expropriation  and  the  hypotheca- 
tory  system.  In  fact,  the  colonies  were  very  nearly  in  full 
enjoyment  of  the  privilege  of  not  paying  their  debts.  The 
indebtedness  on  mortgage  in  Martinico  and  Guadaloupe  was 
valued  at  140,000,000  francs.* 

The  interest  on  money,  according  to  official  documents, 
rose  from  12  to  16,  and  sometimes  from  24  to  30  per  cent. 
It  was  important  that  a  bona  fide  liquidation  should  accom 
pany  emancipation,  and  that  the  soil  as  well  as  men  should 
be  made  free,  in  order  that,  the  estates  being  liberated,  the 
indemnity  might  go  to  relieve  labor,  and  not  to  pay  debts, 
and  that  interest  might  be  reduced  to  a  less  exorbitant  rate. 
In  this  end,  the  tenth  decree  extended  to  the  colonies  the 
expropriation  law  and  the  mortgage  system  (Civil  Code, 
Liv.  iii.  tit.  18,  19),  with  modifications. 

An  order  of  the  commission  of  the  executive  power,  de 
signed  to  raise  credit  by  another  efficacious  means,  deter 
mined  the  establishment  of  banks  at  St.  Pierre,  Pointe-u- 
Pitre,  St.  Denis,  Cayenne,  and  lastly  at  St.  Louis  in  Sene 
gal  (Art.  3).  These  were  to  be  founded  by  joint-stock 
associations  (Art.  2),  controlled  by  a  director  appointed  by 
the  government  and  a  council  of  nine  administrators  and 
three  censors  elected  by  the  stockholders  (Art.  8),  and  for 
the  first  time,  by  the  Ministers  of  the  Marine  and  the  Finan 
ces  (Art.  10).  The  capital  was  fixed  at  10,000,000  francs. 
(Art.  5),  (3,000,000  for  each  island  and  1,000,000  for  Gui 
ana,)  divided  into  shares  of  500  francs,  of  which  the  state 
subscribed  one  half  (Art.  9).  They  were  authorized  to  emit 

*  Testimony  of  M.  Lavolleo,  proces-verbaux,  p.  108. 


96  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

notes  of  from  5  to  1,000  francs,  and  to  loan  at  a  rate  not  ex 
ceeding  eight  per  cent  (Art.  11),  with  the  charge  to  possess 
always  a  reserve  fund  of  specie  equal  to  at  least  one  third 
their  indebtedness  (Art.  7).  They  were  to  commence  oper 
ations  on  the  subscription  of  one  half  the  capital  (Art.  15). 

In  the  last  place  the  commission  prepared  a  bill  of  tariff 
on  sugars  and  coffees.*  It  was  proposed  to  lessen  the 
duty  on  native  sugar  5  francs,  but  to  reduce  the  duty  on 
colonial  sugar  15  francs,  and  the  duty  on  coffee  31  francs. 
It  was  calculated  that  the  difference  would  suffice  to  reani 
mate  labor  in  the  colonies,  and  to  maintain  the  traffic  of  the 
ports  with  the  mother  country  with  profit  to  the  shipping. 
Native  sugar  was  held  cheaply  enough,  and  one  of  the  mem 
bers  of  the  commission  exclaimed,  "  The  beet-root  is  dead." 
It  was  hoped,  by  the  diminution  of  price,  to  bring  back  an 
increase  of  consumption  which  would  compensate  for  the 
losses  of  the  treasury,  valued,  should  it  remain  stationary, 
at  17,000,000  francs  on  sugars,  and  5,000,000  on  coffees. 

Another  special  commission,  composed  of  members  of  the 
administration,  under  the  presidency  of  the  general  of  the 
naval  artillery,  de  Coisy,  had  paved  the  way  for  the  exten 
sion  to  the  colonies  of  the  laws  on  the  recruital  of  the  navy, 
maritime  registry,  and  the  national  guard.  This  was  the 
subject  of  a  decree,  May  3,  1848.  The  measure  was  re 
garded  as  an  efficacious  means  for  rendering  the  blending 
of  the  races  more  complete,  the  education  and  discipline  of 
the  blacks  more  prompt,  the  internal  tranquillity  more  solid 

The  same  day,  the  Moniteur  recorded  the  decrees  of  April 
27  and  May  2  and  3,  1848,  the  order  of  the  Minister  for  the 
organization  of  disciplinary  workshops,  and  the  instructions 
•in  forty-three  articles  concerning  elections.  The  Commis 
sioners-General,  whom  we  shall  follow  into  each  of  our  colo 
nies,  set  out  to  bear  thither  at  once,  and  unexpectedly,  sev 
enteen  decrees,  emancipation,  and  the  Republic. 

*  According  to  a  clear  and  complete  statement,  presented  by  M.  Lavoll»5e. 


EMANCIPATION  BY  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  1848.  97 

But  the  news  of  the  Revolution  of  1848  had  preceded 
them,  and,  as  we  are  about  to  see,  by  a  strange  caprice  of 
events,  if  the  Chamber  and  the  monarchy  had  not  the  honor 
of  voting  the  emancipation  which  they  had  prepared,  in  re 
turn,  the  honor  of  proclaiming  it  was  almost  everywhere 
borne  off  from  the  agents  of  the  Republic  by  the  function 
aries  of  the  monarchy. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

RESULTS   OF  EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

THERE  was  not  a  single  colonist,  there  was  not  a  single 
partisan  of  slavery,  who  had  not  announced,  with  a  deep- 
rooted  conviction,  that  emancipation  would  produce  three 
results  :  — 

The  cessation  of  labor  and  the  utter  ruin  of  the  colonies ; 

The  return  of  the  blacks  through  idleness  to  barbarism  ; 

Pillage  and  murder. 

The  Colonial  Councils  replied  by  these  sombre  prognostics 
to  the  wise  and  deliberate  preparations  of  the  government 
of  July.*  The  writers  of  the  colonies  wrongfully  pretended 
to  rest  these  predictions  on  the  results  of  English  emanci 
pation,  f  the  example  of  St.  Domingo,  and  the  memories  of 
the  Revolution.  The  commerce  of  the  ports  echoed  these 
anxieties,  and  even  at  the  moment  when  emancipation  was 
already  decided  upon,  threats  were  seen  to  succeed  opposi 
tion.  "  The  seaports  will  not  fit  out  ships  for  Bourbon,  and 
thus  the  colony  will  be  given  up  to  famine, "J  said  the  me 
morial  addressed  by  the  city  of  Nantes  to  the  provisional 
government. 

These  sinister  prophets  ill  divined  the  future  ;  they  no 
more  truly  recounted  the  past. 

M.  de  Broglie  had  fully  demonstrated  that  production  in 
the  English  colonies  had  diminished  scarcely  one  fourth 
during  the  first  years  of  liberty,  —  a  diminution  explica- 

*  Report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  p.  16. 

t  Le  Travail  libre  et  le  Travail  esclave,  by  M.  Jollivet,  Deputy,  1845. 

J  Proces-verbaux  of  the  Commission  of  1848,  p.  93. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  1848.  99 

ble  by  many  causes  and  compensated  for  by  the  rise  in 
prices.* 

"  It  is  a  very  great  historical  error,"  repeated  M.  de  Tracy 
in  1849, f  "  to  attribute  the  revolutrbn  of  St.  Domingo  to 
the  negroes  ;  it  was  made  by  the  mulattoes,  and  they  made 
it  to  enter  into  possession  of  the  political  rights  accorded 
them  by  the  decree  of  1791,  which  the  whites  had  refused 
to  carry  into  execution."  It  was  in  J791,  1192,  and  1793 
that  blood  flowed  in  St.  Domingo  ;  it  was  not  till  1794  that 
the  Convention  abolished  slavery. 

It  was  no  more  just  to  invoke  the  memories  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  which  commenced  by  reducing  the  duties  on  colonial 
sugars  to  4  fr.  25  c.  per  100  kilogrammes,  and  increasing 
from  10  to  14  francs  the  extra  charge  on  foreign  sugars,  J  and 
ended  by  exempting  colonial  sugar  from  all  duty  (statute 
of  Sept.  11,  1793).  We  have  briefly  recounted  the  events 
of  this  epoch.  We  are  surprised  to  find,  in  the  Notices  Offi- 
delles  published  in  1840  by  the  Ministry  of  the  Marine,  the 
following  affirmation  :  "  The  Convention  speedily  proclaimed 
the  freedom  of  the  negroes.  Civil  war  broke  out  in  the  col 
ony  of  Martinico,  commerce  was  interrupted,  culture  was 
abandoned,  and  considerable  emigrations  took  place.77  § 

We  do  not  precisely  know  at  what  date  to  place  these 
direful  events,  for  the  Convention  abolished  slavery  on 
the  4th  of  February,  1794,  while  the  English  attacked  the 
island  on  the  3d  of  the  same  month,  and  entered  it  on 
the  22d  of  March,  so  that  the  decree  of  the  Convention 
never  reached  it. 

This  style  of  writing  the  history  of  the  past  is  calculated 
to  throw  doubt  on  the  aptitude  of  the  colonists  to  foresee 
that  of  the  future. 

*  Report,  p.  25  and  following. 

t  Colonial  Commission,  proces-verbaux,  p.  29. 

J  Statutes  of  March  15  and  29,  1791.  Report  of  M.  Beliic  to  the  Council  of 
State,  June  24,  1850,  p.  13. 

§  Notice  sur  la  Martinique,  Chap.  I.  p.  33.  The  same  document  informs  us 
that  Louisiana  was  ceded  in  1762 ! 


100  THE  FKENCH   COLONIES. 

Nevertheless,  the  most  avowed  partisans  of  emancipation 
would  assuredly  have  shared  their  fears,  had  they  foreseen 
that  their  design  would  be  accomplished  by  violence,  by  a 
democratic  revolution?  and  that  on  the  morrow  those  would 
be  disguised  as  citizens  whom  they  had  only  with  infinite 
precautions  dared  transform  into  men. 

Despite  these  predictions?  despite  these  circumstances, 
liberty,  as  we  shall  ^demonstrate,  has  not  ruined  the  colo 
nies,  it  has  not  brought  back  the  negroes  to  barbarism,  it 
has  not  given  birth  to  pillage  and  let  loose  vengeance. 

To  systematize  an  inquiry  so  complicated,  we  will  group 
the  results  into  three  great  divisions,  —  material,  economical, 
and  moral. 

We  will  first  examine  what  have  been  the  results  in  the 
material  point  of  view,  and  begin  by  recounting  the  first 
events  which  followed  the  arrival  in  the  colonies  of  the  laws 
and  men  of  the  Republic  of  1848. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1848  IN  THE   COLONIES.* 
§  1.    MARTINICO. 

WHEN  the  news  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  reached  Mar- 
tinico,  the  colony  was  not  in  a  condition  of  thriving  pros 
perity.  The  competition  of  indigenous  sugar,  and  the  con 
sequences  of  the  bad  harvests  of  1846 'and  184T  in  France, 
had  reduced  Martinico  to  the  necessity  of  asking  loans  and 
assistance  from  the  mother  country.  Security  was  no  more 
stable  tfcan  prosperity  ;  the  means  for  defence  had  been  "suf 
fered  to  fall  into  a  very  bad  condition.  Doubtless,  this 
negligence  testified  strongly  enough  to  the  peaceful  spirit 
of  75,000  slaves  scattered  among  40,000  freemen.  Never 
theless,  since  emancipation  in  the  neighboring  English  colo 
nies,  terror  had  exceeded  danger ;  for,  in  watching  over  the 
seacoasts  to  prevent^escapes,  the  colonies  expended  not  less 
than  240,000  francs  a  year. 

Despite  these  circumstances,  the  news  of  emancipation  at 
first  caused  no  disturbance,  —  a  generous  impulse,  on  the 
contrary,  drew  men  nearer  each  other,  and  the  Municipal 
Council  and  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  St.  Pierre  requested 
the  dissolution  of  the  provisional  government,  f  that  they 
might  reorganize  in  a  manner  to  admit  colored  men  with 
whites.  A  few  years  earlier,  the  majority  of  the  Colonial 
Council,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  given  in  their  resigna- 

*  All  the  facts  related  in  this  chapter  are  taken  from  official  correspondence, 
imparted  by  the  Colonial  Ministry.  It  will  be  comprehended  that  a  feeling  of 
delicacy  causes  us  to  avoid,  as  much  as  possible,  the  use  of  proper  names. 

t  General  Rostoland,  who  had  replaced  Rear- Admiral  Mathieu. 


102  THE  FBENCH  COLONIES. 

lion  to  avoid  sitting  with  a  colored  man.  Both  whites  and 
negroes  signed  a  petition  that  M.  Bissette,  a  well-known 
abolitionist,  should  be  added  to  the  government  commis 
sioners. 

The  elections  passed  off  peaceably,  under  the  happy  influ 
ence  of  this  spirit  of  mutual  concession.*  The  Revolution 
of  1848  enjoyed  there,  as  at  Paris,  a  honeymoon  of  a  few 
days'  duration. 

But  it  would  have  been  a  miracle  if  labor  and  peace  had 
been  able  to  continue  during  these  days  of  unquiet  waiting, 
when  a  whole  populace,  uncertain  of  its  fate,  hastened  every 
morning  to  the  town  or  the  sea-shore  to  receive  a  liberty,  an 
indemnity,  an  authority,  which  was  announced,  but  which 
did  not  come. 

On  the  21st  of  April,  a  rising  was  suppressed  at  St.  Pierre 
and  the  neighboring  communes  of  Precheur  and  Case-Pilote, 
occasioned  by  the  ridicule  cast  on  the  burlesque  attire  of  the 
negroes,  who  had  gone  about  beating  an  effigy,  during  the 
Holy  Week,  which  they  called  whipping  Judas.  A  few  ma 
licious  blacks  took  advantage  of  the  incident  to  oppress  and 
stir  up  the  well-disposed  negroes.  This  first  trouble  was  not 
serious,  and  proved  how  great  was  the  number  of  good  ne 
groes  ;  nevertheless,  it  consummated  the  falling  off  of  com 
merce  and  labor.  Besides  idleness  arid  discouragement, 
the  spirit  of  disorder  had  full  play.  On  the  22d  and  23d 
of  May,  more  serious  disturbances  broke  out,  on  the  occa 
sion  of  setting  at  liberty  a  negro  still  retained  in  prison  ;  a 
number  of  plantations  were  attacked,  and,  one  of  the  plant 
ers  having  fired  at  the  assailants,  bloodshed  ensued,  the  in 
cendiary  torch  was  lighted,  and  all  the  measures  taken  at 
St.  Pierre  and  Fort  de  Francef  did  not  exempt  the  authori 
ties  from  accepting  the  responsibility  of  the  only  measure 

*  M.  Pory-Papy,  attorney,  an  influential  colored  man,  was  appointed  assist 
ant  at  Pointe-a-Pitre. 

i  Fort-de-France  was  the  new  name  of  Fort  Royal ;  Fort  Bourbon  was  also 
named  anew  Fort  Desaix. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  MARTINICO  103 

capable  of  appeasing  the  public  mind,  the  immediate  aboli 
tion  of  slavery,  which  they  proclaimed  in  fact  on  the  23d 
of  May,  by  the  wish  of  the  local  authorities. 

On  landing,  June  3,  the  Commissioner-General,  M.  Perri- 
non,  had  not,  therefore,  to  abolish  slavery.  The  new  com 
missioner  found  the  people  well  disposed  ;  a  volunteer  mili 
tia  and  police  organized  themselves,  and  a  large  number  of 
the  negroes  entreated  by  petition  the  return  of  their  former 
masters,  who  had  emigrated  through  fear  of  disorder.  The 
government  was  looked  to  for  what  it  did  not  bring.  The 
journals  of  the  colony  were  filled  with  eighteen  decrees, 
but  no  measures  were  taken  to  raise  credit.  The  postpone 
ment  of  maturities,  loans,  and  discount  offices  were  de 
manded  ;  above  all,  indemnity  was  loudly  called  for.  We 
learn  only  that  the  Colurnbo  arrived,  bringing  large  chests 
full  of  electoral  registers,  preparatory  to  balloting.  Social 
istic  and  communistic  speeches,  quarrels,  and  polemics  en 
venomed  and  agitated  the  unhappy  island,  more  tossed  by 
the  political  tempests  of  the  mother  country  than  by  the 
storms  of  the  ocean.  As  at  Paris,  more  than  at  Paris,  a 
people,  enslaved  but  yesterday,  was  master  for  four  months 
of  the  lives  of  a  small  and  defenceless  population.  But  such 
were  the  relations  of  the  majority  of  the  two  classes,  let  it 
be  said  to  the  honor  of  both,  that,  after  all,  the  colony  had 
less  to  suffer  from  their  rancor  than  from  the  imprudent  acts 
of  some  few  of  the  agents  destined  to  maintain  peace  ; 
playing  upon  the  word,  we  may  say  that,  in  more  than  one 
point,  the  agents  made  disorder  of  order. 

From  the  26th  of  July,  the  Moniteur  was  able  to  an 
nounce  a  resumption  in  some  degree  of  labor.  The  Com 
missioner-General  appointed  rural  commissioners  to  visit  the 
plantations  and  explain  to  the  planters  their  new  rights  and 
interests  ;  he  himself  made  a  general  tour,  and  authenticat 
ed  some  happy  attempts  at  partnership  between  the  mas 
ters  and  the  former  slaves  ;  partnerships  in  which  generally 


104  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

one  third  of  the  gross  products,  sometimes  more,  was  given 
for  the  share  of  the  labor.  He  remarked  especially  a  num 
ber  of  plantations,  like  that  of  Perrinelle,  where  beloved 
and  intelligent  masters  retained  the  laborers,  paying  them 
wages  which  varied  from  50  c.  to  Ifr.,  1  fr.  25  c.,  1  fr.  50  c. 
Above  all,  he  heard  everywhere  the  unanimous  and  ear 
nest  prayer  for  an  indemnity,  and  a  reduction  of  the  duty 
on  sugars. 

Assuredly  the  colony  did  not  count  electoral  agitation 
among  the  means  of  bringing  back  prosperity  ;  this  was  not 
spared  it.  The  elections  were  scarcely  legal,  for  instruc 
tions  bearing  date  March  8,  had  left  to  the  Assembly  the 
right  of  regulating  the  mode  in  which  these  elections  should 
take  place.  By  a  second  letter  of  instructions,  April  27, 
the  provisional  government,  contradicting  the  first,  had  set 
tled  this  mode  ;  but  the  Assembly,  meeting  on  the  4th  of 
May,  had  listened  to  a  report  from  its  colonial  committee 
which  tended  to  exclude  the  new  freedmen  from  the  ballot- 
box,  and  before  the  conflict  was  ended,  while  the  debates  in 
the  Assembly  were  known  to  the  colonies,  the  Commis 
sioner-General  had  summoned  all  citizens,  without  distinc 
tion,  to  the  elections  to  be  held  on  the  9th,  10th,  and  llth 
of  August.*  Moreover,  more  than  one  colored  man  was 
admitted  illegally,  and  more  than  one  white  man  illegally  ex 
cluded,  especially  in  the  garrison  and  geridarmery.  It  was 
'proved  that  a  pressure,  too  easily  exercised  on  those  who 
neither  knew  how  to  read  nor  write,  nor  scarcely  to  think, 
had  not  been  lacking.  The  Journal  Officiel  of  Martinico 
had  published  odious  menaces,  drawn  up,  it  is  said,  by  the 
Procureur  of  the  Republic  himself,  ajid  signed,  among  oth 
ers,  by  his  brother-in-law  and  the  brother-in-law  of  the  Com 
missioner-General.  One  of  the  candidates  elected,  M.  Bis- 
sette,  thought  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  tender  his  resigna 
tion.  Nevertheless,  as,  of  25,000  electors,  20,000  had  voted, 

*  See  the  Report  of  M.  Charamaule,  Moniteur,  1848,  p.  2878. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  MARTINICO.  105 

and  as,  of  the  20,000  voters,  19,000  had  returned  the  can 
didates  elected,  and  as  the  disturbances  and  irregular  pro 
ceedings  were  far  from  equalling  those  which  had  convulsed 
so  many  of  the  cities  of  France  a  few  months  before,  the 
Constituent  Assembly  refused  to  order  an  inquiry,  and 
sanctioned  the  election. 

Six  weeks  after  the  elections  (Sept.  28,  1848),  the  ap 
pointment  of  Rear-Admiral  Bruat  put  an  end  to  all  these 
storms.  During  the  month  of  November,  he  announced  the 
resumption  of  labor,  estimated  the  future  harvest  at  two 
thirds  the  usual  product,  and  demanded  the  reductidn  of 
taxes  and  indemnity. 

A  few  months  after,  a  commission,  charged  by  the  gover 
nor  with  examining  into  the  state  of  labor,  summed  up  as 
follows  the  facts  gathered  in  twelve  out  of  twenty-three 
communes,  from  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  plantations, 
situated  under  the  most  varied  conditions,  and  employing 
more  than  six  thousand  laborers. 

"It  is  found  by  the  Commission,  as  the  constant  result 
of  all  its  sittings,  that  culture  on  a  large  scale,  already  so 
much  injured  by  the  transient  legislation  of  1845  and  1846, 
was  completely  abandoned,  with  very  few  exceptions,  during 
the  first  two  months  following  emancipation,  but  it  is  also 
found  that,  since  this  epoch,  labor  has  been  gradually  re 
sumed  and  maintained  in  all  parts  of  the  colony.77 

This  testimony  bears  date  May  29,  1849,*  that  is,  pre 
cisely  a  year  subsequent,  almost  day  for  day,  to  the  mourn 
ful  days  which  had  witnessed  murder  and  incendiarism. 

A  month  afterwards,  June  9,  the  elections  passed  off 
without  serious  disturbance,  and  sent  to  the  Legislative 
Assembly  two  partisans  of  order,  one  of  whom,  the  Hon 
orable  M.  Pecoul,  had  been  a  large  slaveholder.  Their 
election  was  confirmed  without  difficulty,  July  23,  1849. 

*  The  report,  which  is  dated  May  29,  1849,  was  inserted  in  the  Revue  coloni- 
ale,  June,  p.  247,  and  in  the  Moniteur,  Oct.  14. 


106  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Admiral  Bruat  was  appointed  Governor-General  of  the 
Antilles  on  the  12th  of  March.  The  statute  regulating  co 
lonial  indemnity  was  passed  on  the  4th  of  April.  These 
dates  mark  the  beginning  of  an  era  of  return,  slow  and 
painful,  but  regular  and  increasing,  towards  order  and  pro 
gress.  V 

During  this  stormy  year  of  transition,  what  then  was 
responsible  for  the  public  calamities  in  Martinico  ?  Was  it 
emancipation  ?  Was  it  the  Revolution  ? 

In  March,  news  arrived  of  the  events  of  February.  The 
first  moment  of  astonishment  was  marked  by  no  disorder. 

In  May,  the  absence  of  all  authority,  the  annihilation  of 
labor,  the  excitement  arising  most  of  all  from  the  mother 
country  and  the  free  colored  men,  engendered  a  few  days 
of  lamentable  disorder,  yet  circumscribed  and  speedily  sup 
pressed.  Proclaimed  May  23,  emancipation  appeased  the 
disturbance,  very  far  from  causing  it. 

The  arrival  of  the  Commissioner-General,  his  tours  of  in 
spection  and  good  words  sufficed  to  bring  back  and  consoli 
date  order  in  June  and  July.  But  instead  of  restoring  the 
laborers  to  the  fields,  they  were  sent  in  August  to  the  ballot- 
box,  so  that  the  first  months  of  this  painful  half-year  were 
passed  in  waiting  and  the  last  in  voting,  while  agitation  was 
the  only  remedy  brought  by  the  government  for  anxiety 
and  ruin. 

But  from  September,  with  a  new  power,  confidence  re 
vived,  and  in  October  and  November  its  first  effects  were 
proved,  although  no  measure  had  been  taken  by  the  mother 
country  to  secure  an  indemnity. 

Four  months  after,  an  investigation  ascertained  that  labor 
was  everywhere  resumed.  In  June,  the  partisans  of  order 
triumphed  in  the  new  elections. 

Let  not  liberty  be  accused,  then,  of  the  early  misfortunes 
in  Martinico  ;  it  was  but  one  difficulty  more,  less  great  than 
might  have  been  expected,  added  to  all  the  embarrassments 


EMANCIPATION  IN   GUADALOUPE.  107 

which  the  mother  country  suffered  herself  and  imposed  on 
her  colonies. 

It  is  to  the  Revolution  of  February  that  emancipation  is 
due,  but  it  is  not  to  emancipation  that  we  are  to  attribute 
all  the  consequences  of  the  Revolution  of  February. 

§  2.    GUADALOUPE. 

Appointed  Governor  after  numerous  voyages  and  labors 
devoted  to  the  study  of  the  results  of  emancipation  in  the 
English  colonies,  Captain  Xayrle  of  the  Marine  was  des 
tined  to  attach  his  name  to  the  proclamation  of  this  great 
measure  in  Guadaloupe,  where,  April  25,  he  had  abolished 
whipping  and  other  corporal  punishment. 

Informed  of  the  disorders  which  afflicted  Martinico  on 
the  22d  and  23d  of  May,  1848,  on  the  27th  of  the  same 
month,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  assenTbled  the 
Privy  Council  and  resolutely  proposed  to  proclaim  emanci 
pation  without  delay.  The  Municipal  Council  of  Pointe-a- 
Pitre  expressed  the  same  wish.  Liberty  was  proclaimed, 
and  the  following  decree  was  everywhere  to  be  read :  — 

"LIBERTY,  EQUALITY,  FRATERNITY. 

"  We,  Governor  of  Guadaloupe  and  its  dependencies  ; 

"  In  view  of  the  decree  of  the  Provisional  Government, 
bearing  date  March  4,  which  proclaims  that  no  French  ter 
ritory  can  longer  hold  slaves ; 

"  In  view  of  the  delay  caused  by  circumstances  in  the 
application  of  this  principle  to  Guadaloupe  ; 

"  Considering  that,  through  the  good  spirit  of  which  it  has 
given  proof,  the  slave  population  has  shown  itself  worthy 
of  the  benefit  of  liberty  ; 

"  Considering  that  everything  announces  that  it  will  con 
tinue  to  merit  it  by  persevering  in  its  habits  of  order  and 
labor,  and  in  the  accomplishment  of  all  the  duties  of  citi 
zen,  confiding  in  its  intelligence  and  patriotism  ; 


108  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

11  In  view  of  Article  11  of  the  statute  of  April  24,  1833  ; 

"  By  the  unanimous  advice  of  the  Privy  Council  ; 

"Have  ordered  and  do  order  :  — 

"Art.  I.     SLAVERY  is  A-BOLISHED. 

"  Art.  II.  The  indemnity  lawfully  due  to  the  owners  of 
slaves  is  placed  under  the  safeguard  of  the  national  honor, 
and  recommended  to  the  justice  of  the  National  Assembly. 

"  Art.  III.  The  military  commandant  and  heads  of  the 
administration  are  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  pres 
ent  order. 

"  St.  Christopher,  May  27,  1848."*  . 

A  solemn  mass  was  celebrated  by  the  Apostolic  Prefect, 
and  after  addresses  by  the  Governor  and  prelate,  and  the 
blessing  of  a  tree  of  liberty,  the  excited  and  joyous  crowd 
dispersed  without  disturbance  to  the  sound  of  shouts  of 
Long  live  the  Eepublic  !  Long  live  the  Governor  /  Long  live 
Religion  ! 

The  night,  which  came  on  a  few  hours  after,  was  not,  per 
haps,  exempt  from  fear,  but  its  shadows  fell  on  affranchised 
souls  and  tranquillized  consciences  ;  it  fell  on  a  day  which 
was  perhaps  to  human  beings  the  fairest  one  of  life. 

When  M.  Gatirie,  appointed  Commissioner-General  by  the 
decree  of  April  27,  arrived  at  Guadaloupe,  May  15,  1848, 
order  had  not  been  disturbed  for  a  single  instant.  All  his  . 
reports  attest  that  it  was  equally  tranquil  afterwards.  The 
institution  of  cantonal  juries  and  the  establishment  of  penal 
labor  sufficed  to  appease  the  difficulties  arising  most  espe 
cially  from  the  obstinacy  of  the  negroes  in  keeping  the  cab 
ins  belonging  to  their  former  masters,  and  which  they  con 
sidered  as  their  own. 

Doubtless,  labor  suffered  at  the  beginning.  It  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  three  causes  united  in  its  disorganization. 

*  Signed:  Layrle,  Chaumont,  Quillet,  Jules  Billecoq,  Bayle-Mouillard,  Bon 
net,  A.  Lignieres,  A.  Mollenthiel,  Laugier,  L.  Richard  de  Chicourt. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  GUADALOUPE.  109 

The  consequences  of  tho  bad  harvests  of  1846  and  1847  had 
forced  the  colonies  to  supply  themselves  with  grain  from 
the  United  States,  for  which  they  had  been  obliged  to  pay 
a  high  price  in  specie,  and  from  which  a  crisis  had  resulted. 
The  stupor  caused  by  the  revolution  was  a  second  most 
sufficient  reason  by  itself  alone  for  putting  a  stop  to  busi 
ness.  Lastly,  the  sudden  liberation  of  the  slaves  compli 
cated  a  position  which  it  had  not  alone  produced.  ^ 

They  were  naturally  seen  to  abandon  the  large  planta 
tions,  especially  those  where  they  had  been  worst  treated, 
and  to  divide  into  two  classes,  —  the  idle,  who  thought  them 
selves  called  to  the  liberty  of  doing  nothing,  and  the  indus 
trious,  some  of  whom  sought  employment  in  the  towns, 
while  others  asked  permission  to  settle  on  a  portion  of  the 
uncultivated  public  lands.  Even  among  those  who  consent 
ed  to  work  on  the  plantations,  a  great  lack  of  regularity 
was  remarked,  —  a  change  of  mind,  position,  and  plans  was 
naturally  the  first  fancy  of  beings  always  subjected  to  the 
same  labor,  on  the  same  field,  and  under  the  same  authority. 

The  energetic  colonists,  who  speedily  made  the  best  of 
the  new  state  of  affairs,  suffered  less  than  those  who  were 
discouraged,  than  those  who  had  been  accustomed  to  act 
through  the  medium  of  expensive  overseers,  often  harsh 
and  detested,  or  than  those  who,  burdened  with  debts,  were 
forced  to  liquidate  them  at  the  most  critical  moment. 

But  it  is  very  certain  that  disorder  was  not  born  at  Gua- 
daloupe  with  emancipation,  but  only  through  the  conse 
quences  of  revolution.  Thus  a  great  part  of  the  loss  of 
time  by  the  former  slaves  came  from  their  subjection  to 
numerous  formalities,  not  only  in  registering  themselves  in 
the  civil  state  and  obtaining  the  emancipation  papers,  to 
which  they  attached  a  rightful  importance,  but  also  in  exer 
cising  political  rights.  They  were  not  disturbed  by  their 
recognition  as  men  ;  they  were  agitated  by  their  improvisa 
tion  into  citizens. 


110  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Here,  again,  the  first  elections  passed,  if  not  peaceably, 
at  least  without  incendiarism  and  vengeance.* 

In  two  communes  (Desirade  and  Anse-Bertrand)  a  terri 
ble  hurricane  detained  the  voters  at  home  ;  in  two  others 
(Grand-Bourg  and  Vieux-Fort),  the  tumult  entirely  put  a  stop 
to  the  voting.  But  in  the  majority  of  the  communes,  they 
were  sufficiently  regular  to  permit  the  Assembly  to  confirm 
the  result  without  discussion  (Oct.  21,  1848). 

Martinico  suffered  in  1848  ;  in  1849  and  1850,  Guadaloupe 
was  destined  to  have  its  turn. 

The  Commissioner-General  was  replaced  at  the  close  of 
1848  by  a  new  Governor,  who,  himself  replaced  in  the  begin 
ning  of  1849,  returned  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Appeased 
by  some  painful  examples  of  seventy  in  the  mother  coun 
try,  disorder  attempted  to  emigrate  to  the  colonies.  Cul 
pable  incitements,  arising  from  Paris,  urged  on  the  slaves 
to  conquer  for  themselves  an  absolute  independence,  as  at 
St.  Domingo.  Names  served  as  rallying-points.  An  im 
provised  press  multiplied  appeals  and  instigations.  The 
clubs  were  open  to  orators  who  a  few  months  before  knew 
nothing  of  schools,  and  were  subject  to  the  lash.  It  was 
under  this  regime,  with  these  seeds  of  tumult,  that  the  col 
ony  was  to  proceed  the  same  year  to  general  elections,  mu 
nicipal  elections,  the  installation  of  new  municipalities,  and 
the  judgment  of  grave  and  hotly  contested  suits.  So  much 
fire  could  not  be  thrown  upon  so  much  powder  with  impu 
nity. 

At  the  moment  of  the  elections,  in  June,  1849,  M.  Bis- 
sette,  made  deputy  by  acclamation  at  Martinico,  where  the 
ballot-box,  opened  fifteen  days  before,  had  produced  results  in 
favor  of  order  which  the  vanquished  party  wished  to  avenge 
in  Guadaloupe,  — M.  Bissette  came  to  Guadaloupe  with  the 
intent  of  employing  his  great  popularity  in  favor  of  order. 
Accused  of  having  sold  himself  to  the  whites,  and  of  wish- 

*  Report  of  Aug.  10,  1848. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  GUADALOUPE.  Ill 

ing  to  return  the  negroes  to  slavery,  he  was  assailed  at 
Santa  Rosa,  and  nearly  assassinated.  At  Mary-Galante,  the 
arrest  of  an  agitator  caused  new  disorders,  which  it  was 
necessary  to  repress  by  force. 

The  elections  ended  amidst  so  many  menaces  and  criminal 
intrigues,  that  10,897  voters  abstained  from  voting,  and 
the  Legislative  Assembly  was  obliged  to  pronounce  the 
elections  void  (Oct.  17,  >849). 

The  journals  envenomed  these  deplorable  struggles  dur 
ing  the  course  of  the  •uits  in  which  the  crimes  of  June  re 
sulted.  There  were  forty  condemnations  and  twenty-six 
acquittals  (April  18,  1850).  The  disturbance  that  accom 
panied  these  suits,  with  four  successive  incendiary  fires, 
obliged  the  Governor,  three  weeks  after,  to  declare  the  city 
and  the  arrondissement  of  Pointe-a-Pitre  under  martial  law. 
Approved  by  the  Governor-General,  and  afterwards  by  the 
President  of  the  Republic  and  the  Assembly,  this  measure 
was  even  extended  to  the  entire  island  by  a  statute  of  ur 
gency,  July  11,  1850.* 

The  firmness  of  the  courts  and  government  consum 
mated  the  discouragement  or  punishment  of  the  authors  of 
these  disorders  :  it  was  ascertained  that  they  were  the  work 
of  political  passions  ;  that  the  negroes  had  labored  with  the 
whites  to  extinguish  the  fires  ;  that  the  most  peaceable 
elections  had  been  in  the  country  ;  that  if  the  negroes  had 
not  voted,  the  whites,  opposed  to  the  free  mulattoes,  would 
have  suffered  much  more  ;  in  a  word,  that  peace  had  been 
troubled,  not  by  emancipation,  although  it  had  served  as 
the  pretext,  but  by  the  clubs,  the  press,  the  demagogues 
and  anarchical  elections,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  same 
causes,  the  same  passions,  perhaps  the  same  men,  as  at 

Paris. 

Prosperity  did  not  return  as  speedily  as  tranquillity.    The 
"amount  of  importations,   fallen  from  41,759,712  francs   in 

*  Moniteur,  1850,  pp.  2253,  2294,  2334,  2370,  2376. 


112  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

1847   to   11,980,480   francs  in  1848,  had    already  risen  to 
22,724,413  francs  in  1849.* 

From  the  last  quarter  of  1849,  the  regular  payment  of 
the  indemnity  had  reanimated  confidence  and  labor,  and 
despite  fruitless  endeavors,  unsuccessful  attempts,  at  part 
nerships  between  the  colonists  and  laborers,  there  was  rea 
son  to  hope  for  a  revival,  when  the  fires  and  disturbances 
of  1850  renewed  the  alarm,  and,  *the  commercial  buoyancy 
decreasing  from  one  quarter  to  another,  f  the  year  1850  was 
marked  by  an  extremely  low  figure.  0 

Importation, 12,741,735  fr. 

Exportation, 8,155,932 

20,897,667  fr. 

Guadaloupe,  which  was  slower  to  suffer  than  Martinico, 
was  also  slower  to  rise.  Emancipation  had  been  there  a 
day  of  rejoicing ;  the  elections  brought  days  of  mourning, 
and  politics  remain  responsible  for  tears  and  blood  which 
had  not  been  caused  by  freedom. 

§  3.    THE  ISLE  OF  BOURBON,  OR  REUNION. 

Numerous  reasons  united  to  give  rise  to  the  fear  that 
emancipation  would  be  the  signal  for  a  more  painful  crisis 
on  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  than  anywhere  else  ;  on  the  con 
trary,  it  was  milder. 

On  an  island  situated  four  thousand  leagues  from  the 
mother  country,  without  support  in  the  midst  of  foreign 
nations,  with  feeble  local  resources,  lately  tried  by  hurri 
canes,  and  by  disease  among  the  sugar-cane,  which  had 
become  its  principal  culture,  was  crowded  a  population  of 
37,000  whites,  66,000  slaves,  and  7,695  bound  laborers  of 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1850,  p.  130;  1851,  p.  175. 

t  2d  quarter,  importations         .        ...        .  4,035,217  fr. 

3d         "  "  .         ....  3,755,912 

4th       "  "  .      ,.  .      .     .  ,   —  1,915,659 


EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  ISLE  OF  BOURBON.  113 

all  sorts, —  Caffres,  East  Indians,  Madecasses,  Malays,  and 
Chinamen.  In  the  number  of  whites  were  reckoned  the  free 
colored  men,  almost  all  opposed  to  labor,  and  incapable  of 
filling  office  or  maintaining  order.  The  bound  laborers  were 
far  inferior  to  the  slaves.  The  criminal  statistics  *  proved 
that  crimes  and  offences  were  committed  in  the  propor 
tion  of 

1  among  300  slaves, 

1       "          60  East  Indians, 

1       "          13  Chinamen. 

These  bound  laborers  weighed  no  less  heavily  on  the 
wealth  of  the  island  ;  for  to  support  them,  it  was  already 
necessary  to  call  on  the  East  Indies  for  from  20,000  to 
25,000  sacks  of  rice,  which  was  paid  for  in  specie. 

The  prosperity  and  security  of  the  island  were  therefore 
very  imperfect.     The  means  of  material  defence   were  far 
from  reassuring  ;  the  garrison  was  tolerably  strong,  but  on 
bad  terms  with  the  militia  ;  the  number  of  guns  tolerably 
large,  but  all  without  carriages.     Without  doubt,  the  kind 
ness  of  the  whites  and  the  gentleness  of  the  blacks  facili 
tated  the  relations   between   them.     Happily,   during   the 
past  few  years,  the  negroes  had  been  evangelized  with  as 
much  success  as  zeal  by  excellent  priests,  whose  personal 
influence  contributed  powerfully  to   the  union   of  classes. 
But  the  uncertainty  left  hovering  in  the  public  mind  by 
schemes  of  emancipation,  endangered  these  good  relations. 
The  government  showed   itself  neither   clear  nor  decided 
upon  emancipation,   nor   yet   upon   indemnity  ;  the   slaves 
were  as  uneasy  as  the  colonists,  and  among  the  latter  there 
were  many  who,  wearied  with  this  long  hesitation,  wished, 
and  even  asked,  that,  whatever  might  be  the   decision,  it 
should  be  speedily  made.     There   comes  a  moment  when 
the  prisoner  has  but  one  wish,  —  to  be  judged  ;  to  endure 
the  sentence  is  nothing  to  the  torture  of  awaiting  it. 

*  Collected  by  Attorney-General  Barbaroux. 


114  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

This  agitation  of  the  public  mind,  envenomed  by  malevo 
lent  journals,  appeared  for  a  moment  on  the  point  of  break 
ing  out  openly.  On  the  king's  birthday,  May  1,  1848,  the 
prudent  and  firm  Governor  of  Bourbon,  Captain  Graeb  of 
the  Marine,  thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to  postpone -the 
usual  review,  in  order  to  avoid  an  occasion  of  disturbance. 
He  was  ignorant,  however,  that,  two  months  before,  the 
king  whose  birthday  they  were  celebrating  had  taken  the 
road  to  exile.  The  first  rumors  of  the  sudden  change  in 
the  French  government  reached  Bourbon  at  the  end  of  May. 
After  calming  the  public  mind  by  a  prudent  proclamation, 
the  Governor,  receiving  official  information,  on  the  9th  of 
June,  proclaimed  the  Republic. 

The  three  months  that  followed  were  painful.  Letters 
coming  from  France  threw  uncalled  for  doubts  on  the  ques 
tion  of  indemnity.  Nothing  less  was  talked  of  than  of  sepa 
rating  from  France,  as  in  1794,  and  resisting,  even  by  force, 
the  Commissioner-General  on  his  arrival.  Clubs  and  jour 
nals  were  established.  A  general  assembly  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  delegates  from  the  communes,  a  sort  of  regular 
central  club,  was  formed  by  election  at  the  end  of  July  ; 
and  when  the  news  of  the  decrees  of  April  27  arrived  at 
Bourbon,  this  assembly  declared  them  rendered  by  incom 
petent  authority,  and  drew  up  a  plan  to  be  submitted  to 
the  mother  country,  which,  without  opposing  the  emanci 
pation  of  the  slaves,  demanded,  —  1st,  the  postponement  of 
the  measure,  in  order  to  give  time  to  gather  in  the  harvests, 
and  organize  schools,  hospitals,  and  penal  labor  ;  2d,  the 
preliminary  re-establishment  of  the  Colonial  Assembly  ;  3d, 
the  formation  of  a  National  Guard  and  Municipal  Councils 
before  emancipation  ;  4th,  indemnity.  The  same  unanimity 
appeared  in  the  public  square  at  St.  Pierre,  where  in  Au 
gust,  an  imprudent  speech  having  exasperated  the  negroes, 
five  thousand  inhabitants  assembled  on  the  instant  to  watch 
over  the  maintenance  of  order. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  ISLE   OF  BOUKBON.  115 

To  guard  against  the  diminution  of  labor,  the  Governor 
resolved  to  abrogate  the  order  given  March  6,  1839,  to 
prohibit  the  future  immigration  of  Indians,  but  he  did  not 
consider  himself  obliged  to  promulgate  prematurely  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  though  authorized  to  do  so  by  a 
despatch  dated  May  7  ;  and  when  his  successor  arrived, 
(October  13),  the  colony  was  at  peace,  and  labor  was 
scarcely  anywhere  interrupted. 

The  Commissioner-General,  M.  Sarda-Garriga,  published 
the  decrees  of  emancipation,  October  18,  in  a  solemn  audi 
ence  of  the  court.  He  had  the  good  sense  to  close  the 
clubs,  to  surround  himself  with  enlightened  counsels,  and 
to  prescribe,  by  a  provident  order,  that,  before  the  20th  of 
December,  the  end  of  the  delay  accorded  by  the  decrees, 
every  slave  should  hire  himself  to  labor  for  two  years  on 
a  sugar  plantation,  or  for  one  year  as  a  domestic,  under 
penalty  of  being  regarded  and  punished  as  a  vagrant. 

Thanks  to  these  measures,  followed  by  an  order  to  estab 
lish  penal  works,*  with  the  approbation  of  the  planters, 
and  under  the  control  of  the  former  Governor  and  principal 
functionaries,  the  transition  was  easier  than  had  been  hoped. 
The  proclamation  of  the  final  liberation  of  the  slaves,  De 
cember  20, f  was  a  day  of  rejoicing.  The  commissioner 
and  commandant  of  the  naval  station  both  affirmed,  at  the 
end  of  the  month,  that  the  year  would  end  without  disorder, 
almost  without  loss. 

The  elections  which  followed  created  little  agitation, 
since  few  attended  them.  Of  36,000  registered  names, 
there  were  but  5,200  voters. 

The  best  proof  of  the  speedy  return  of  tranquillity,  and 
even  of  labor,  despite  the  real  losses  and  days  of  anxiety, 

*  Order  of  December  23,  1848,  maintained  in  force  by  the  order  of  September 
18,  1852,  as  well  as  another  order  of  May  24,  1849,  which  constituted  a  special 
syndic  in  each  commune  to  watch  over  and  regulate  the  interests  of  the  hired 
laborers. 

|  Muniteur,  April  6,  1849. 


3  1  6  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

are  found  in  the  statistics  of  productions.  Idleness,  the 
first  form  of  the  independence  of  poor  devils  to  whom  the 
right  of  doing  nothing  was  the  natural  synonyme  of  freedom, 
since  servitude  had  been  the  duty  of  doing  too  much,  the 
lack  of  capital,  the  uneasiness  born  of  twofold  political  and 
social  transformation,  weighed  upon  production  so  as  to 
make  the  most  important,  that  of  sugar,  fall  from  24,000,000 
kilogrammes,  in  1847,  to  21,700,000  kilogrammes,  in  1848  ; 
but  in  1849,  the  first  year  of  freedom,  the  amount  had 
already  increased  to  23,660,000  kilogrammes  ;  and  in  1850, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  terrible  hurricane  of  the  1st  of 
March,  the  consequences  of  which  were  severe  enough  to 
call  from  the  mother  country  an  aid  of  100,000  francs,  it 
would  have  equalled  the  amount  of  1847,  of  which  it  only 
fell  short  500,000  kilogrammes,  and  which  it  exceeded  in 
1851,  when  the  production  amounted  to  26,000,000  kilo 
grammes. 

These  results,  due  certainly,  as  was  indicated  at  the 
beginning  by  the  Commissioner-General,*  to  the  good  spirit 
of  both  classes,  should  be  also  attributed  to  the  facility 
of  procuring  labor  possessed  by  the  colony.  More  than 
twenty  thousand  East  Indians  and  some  hundred  Africans 
were  introduced  during  the  first  years  ;  an  addition  un 
favorable  to  good  order,  morals,  and  even  to  wealth,  — 
since  the  Coolies  kept  their  wages  to  carry  back  to  their 
own  country,  instead  of  settling  in  the  colony  like  the 
negroes, — but  most  valuable  in  making  up  for  the  deser 
tion  of  the  large  plantations. 

As  in  1794,  so  in  1848,  did  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  find 
means  of  passing  through  the  evil  days  better  than  any 
of  the  rest  of  our  colonies  ;  an  unheard-of  success,  if  we 
reflect  on  the  great  number  of  blacks  assembled  on  their 
native  soil  with  the  few  whites  far  distant  from  their  coun 
try,  and  if  we  recall  the  sinister  predictions  which  scarcely 

*  Address  of  December  20,  1848. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  GUIANA.  117 

a  year  before  announced  violence  and  ruin.  We  shall  have 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  these  prophecies  contradicted  in  de 
tail  on  every  point. 

§  4.    GUIANA. 

•   •  . 

At  Guiana,  emancipation  might  easily  have  caused  gen 
eral  disorganization.  An  immense  territory,  covered  in 
part  with  thick  forests,  offered  to  the  negroes  the  tempta 
tion  of  an  easy  flight  and  an  impenetrable  refuge,  and,  ac 
cording  to  their  tastes,  the  choice  between  a  vagrant  life 
and  squatting  on  lands.  Great  numbers  of  negroes,  who 
had  already  thus  regained  their  independence,  incited  them 
by  their  example.  With  few  exceptions,  the  planters  were 
not  rich  in  this  colony,  always  languishing,  although  it  had 
cost  the  mother  country,  over  50,000,000  francs*  from  1817 
to  1848.  The  negroes  could  not,  therefore,  be  restrained 
by  interest  anymore  than  by  fear,  for  there  were  14,000 
slaves  to  6,000  whites. f  The  garrison  had  been  diminished 
since  1814.  The  Governor,  Captain  Pariset  of  the  Marine, 
vainly  asked  that  it  should  be  filled  up,  and  also  that  the 
clergy  should  be  increased.  "  For  ten  priests/7  wrote  he, 
"  are  worth  more  to  good  order  than  two  companies  of 
infantry." 

In  this  little  disarmed  and  suffering  community  fell  the 
news  of  the  Revolution  of  1848,  brought  in  the  beginning 
of  May  by  an  American  schooner.  A  wise  and  firm  procla 
mation  from  the  Governor  enjoined  patience.  The  colpor- 
tage  of  an  address  to  the  government  produced  a  little  agi- 

*  Exact  sum:  Expenses  of  the  Colony,        .        .        .        49,386,000  fr. 
Flotilla,      ...       ".        ...        .      3,300,000 

51,686,000  fr. 

t  Statistics  of  the  census  of  1844:  — Freemen,  5,902:  25  officials,  726  soldiers 
(of  whom  116  -were  Africans),  21  gendarmes,  21  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph,  8  lepers. 
Slaves,  18,988;  of  whom  10,935  belonged  to  white,  and  3,068  to  colored  owners, 
and  525  to  the  domain,  and  117  were  lepers. 


118  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

tation  at  the  end  of  the  month.  Notwithstanding-,  when 
M.  Pariset,  whom  the  Provisional  Government  had  the  wis 
dom  to  maintain  in  office,  proclaimed,  on  the  10th  of  June, 
that  all  slaves  would  be  free  on  the  10th  of  August,  this 
important  measure  occasioned  no  disturbance,  although  Au 
gust  was  precisely  the  beginning  of  the  harvest,  and  though 
nothing  was  said  to  the  colonists  about  indemnity.  At  the 
end  of  July,  the  events  in  Martinico  were  known,  but  this 
did  not  seriously  affect  tranquillity,  neither  did  a  protest 
from  the  quarter  of  Approuague,  subscribed  by  several  func 
tionaries,  nor  the  opening  of  clubs  and  the  manosuvres  of 
dangerous  mulattoes. 

If  order  did  not  suffer,  it  was  impossible  that  it  should 
have  been  the  same  with  labor.  One  intelligent  and  reso 
lute  planter  *  emancipated  his  slaves  directly,  without 
awaiting  the  expiration  of  the  two  months'  delay,  and 
agreed  with  them  for  immediate  wages.  But,  in  general, 
inconstancy,  the  love  of  small  estates,  the  novelty  of  inde 
pendence,  and  the  incitement  of  the  republican  reunions, 
estranged  the  negroes  from  labor.  The  letting  of  the  colo 
nial  lands  for  a  part  of  their  produce  was  vainly  essayed  ; 
the  blacks  distrusted  any  system  which  did  not  secure 
them  the  fruits  of  their  labor  day  by  day.  The  cantonal 
juries  did  not  succeed.  A  commission  appointed  by  the 
Governor  for  the  regulation  of  tasks  had  more  success. 
But  in  result  (and  we  must  in  truth  be  astonished  that  so 
many  causes  united  produced  no  more  injury)  the  harvest  of 
1848  produced  but  one  half  the  harvest  of  1847.  It  is  true 
that  prices  rose  from  IT  to  24  francs  per  50  kilogrammes. 
The  price  of  annotta  increased  still  more,  rising  from  80  c. 
to  2  fr.  50  c.  per  kilogramme ;  so  that  the  215,000  kilo 
grammes  produced  in  1849  brought  more  than  the  521,000 
produced  in  1846.  Despite  this  rise  in  prices,  the  enor 
mous  decrease  in  natural  products,  and  consequently  in  the 

*  M.  Roumy. 


EMANCIPATION  IN  GUIANA.  119 

value  of  property,  was  calculated  to  dismay  the  colonists. 
Never  had  Guiana  been,  never  could  it  be,  an  important 
sugar  colony.  The  clayey  and  marshy  lands  of  the  sugar 
plantations  give  a  fine  cane,  but  inferior  sugar.  Coffee, 
nearly  abandoned  in  the  Antilles,  might  prosper  there, 
as  well  as  cocoa,  spices,  and  oil-bearing  seeds.  But  how 
produce  them  without  hands,  without  money,  and  without 
courage.  If  a  great  number  of  (blacks  returned  to  Indian 
life  by  installing  themselves  on  bits  of  ground  in  the  up 
lands,  they  were  not  led  there  merely  by  an  instinct  of 
vagrant  independence.  Averse  to  working  the  plantations 
on  shares,  or  to  hiring  the  colonial  lands  for  a  part  of  their 
produce,  the  tardy  results  of  which  inspired  them  with  a 
natural  distrust,  they  wished  to  labor  only  for  wages,  and 
their  former  masters  had  not  capital  wherewith  to  pay  them. 
Now,  in  the  economical  position  in  which  this  unhappy  col 
ony  found  itself  placed,  without  wages  there  was  no  labor ; 
without  labor,  no  revenues  ;  without  revenues,  no  purr 
chases,  no  importations,  no  ships  in  the  harbor  ;  and  from 
day  to  day  the  fear  of  a  veritable  famine,  thoroughly  aban 
doned  lands,  sterile  works,  ruined  machinery,  and  counter 
manded  shipments,  produced  such  discouragement  in  the 
public  mind,  that  leading  men  were  seen  proposing  to  cede 
Guiana  to  the  United  States. 

There  was  no  need  of  elections  to  complete  this  uneasi 
ness  ;  the  agitation  might  be  increased  by  want,  and  this  oc 
casion  for  the  negroes  to  know  and  compute  their  strength 
was  by  no  means  reassuring.  They  passed  off,  however, 
without  disturbance,  and  added  another  proof  to  the  demon 
stration,  furnished  by  these  long  months  of  crisis,  of  the 
gentleness  of  these  people,  who  lacked  labor  much  more 
than  labor  lacked  them. 

Affairs  must  be  very  flourishing  in  France  for  Guiana  to  be 
prosperous  ;  the  slightest  embarrassment  of  the  few  houses 
that  carry  on  the  traffic  with  this  distant  country  extinguishes 


120  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

all  its  activity,  i^ven  though  the  revolution  of  February 
had  not  carried  emancipation  there,  it  would  indubitably 
have  caused  its  ruin  ;  and  here  again,  it  is  not  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  but.  the  abolition  of  commerce,  which  should  be 
justly  accused  of  an  injury  which  could  only  be  remedied 
by  directing  capital  thither.  Convicts  were  sent  there  in 
stead.  Since  the  decree  of  December  8,  1851,  Guiana  has 
completely  changed  character,  and,  instead  of  a  commercial, 
become  a  penal  colony. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

LAWS. 

WHILE  these  events  were  passing  in  the  colonies,  and  to 
remedy  the  sufferings  which  the  transitory  and  violent  state 
of  affairs  —  created,  not  by  emancipation,  but  by  revolution, 
less  by  the  decrees  than  the  agents  of  the  Provisional  Gov 
ernment —  had  drawn  upon  our  possessions,  the  Minister 
of  the  Marine  and  Colonies,  Admiral  Romain-Desfosses,  pro 
posed  to  the  President  of  the  Republic,  November  22,  1849, 
the  appointment  of  a  new  colonial  commission,  the  presi 
dency  of  which^  by  a  choice  as  just  as  intelligent,  was 
confided  to  the  Due  de  Broglie.  This  was  composed  of 
MM.  H.  Passy,  de  Tracy,  and  Isambert,  ancient  and  de 
voted  friends  of  emancipation  and  the  colonies.  Vice- 
Admiral  Cecil  and  Vice- Admiral  Laine  represented  in  it  the 
navy  ;  MM.  de  Laussat,  de  Lancastel,  Fournier,  Hubert- 
Delisle,  Sully-Brunet,  Demoly,  Ancel,  and  Barbaroux,  the 
ports  and  colonies  ;  and  M.  Le  Pelletier  Saint-Remy  was 
secretary. 

The  statement  presented  by  the  Colonial  Director,  M. 
Mestro,  called  to  sustain  under  a  more  regular  regime  the 
same  principles  which  he  had  so  firmly  sustained  before  the 
commission  of  1848,  did  not  exaggerate  the  sufferings  of 
the  colonies. 

"The  planters,"  said  one  of  the  members,*  "need  laws 
for  their  protection  ;  the  negroes,  yielding  to  a  very  expli 
cable  impulse,  at  the  first  moment  almost  simultaneously 

*  M.  de  Laussat,  Proces-verbaux,  pp.  6,  18. 
6 


122  THE  FKENCH   COLONIES. 

discarded  labor.  But  they  have  returned  by  degrees  to  the 

culture  of  the  soil ; they  are  at  work.  Let  property 

be  protected,  let  labor  be  made  active,  and  colonial  society 

will  settle  down  on  a  solid  basis A  second  example 

will  not,  perhaps,  be  found  in  the  world  of  this  simultaneous 
concession  of  civil  and  political  rights  to  a  population 
which  had  been  deprived  of  them  traditionally  by  slavery. 
There  is  reason  to  be  astonished  that  such  daring  should 
not  have  involved  more  disasters.  We  have  not  dared  do 
the  same  thing  in  Africa,  although  the  Arabs  are  far  superior 
in  civilization  to  the  negroes." 

Another  member*  added:  "It  may  be  maintained  that 
the  planters  have  neither  been  the  losers  by  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  negroes,  nor  by  universal  suffrage  ;  without 
them,  they  would  have  found  themselves  face  to  face  with 
the  mulattoes,  who  are  much  more  hostile  to  them.  In  the 
colonies,  as  in  France,  the  best  elections  have  been  in  the 
rural  districts." 

Notwithstanding,  if  material  order,  despite  local  ex 
cesses,  was  not  profoundly  disturbed,  legal  order  appeared 
wholly  insufficient,  and  it  was  above  all  to  the  establish 
ment  of  this  that  the  commission  had  to  give  their  atten 
tion. 

From  its  first  steps  are  found  the  delays  of  the  old  par 
liamentary  spirit,  with  its  honorable  scruples  and  intermi 
nable  objections.  Before  everything,  the  commission  in 
vestigated  its  own  competency.  Article  109  of  the  Consti 
tution  declared  that  the  colonies  were  ruled  by  particular 
laws,  until  a  special  law  placed  them  under  the  regime  of 
the  Constitution  itself.  It  was  very  clear  that  the  colonial 
territory  was  completely  French,  that  all  the  inhabitants 
were  free  and  equal,  and  that  no  particular  law  could  dero 
gate  from  these  two  primordial  principles,  but  that,  concern 
ing  all  besides,  special  regulations  might  be  introduced  into 

*  M.  de  Tracy,  Ibid.  p.  29. 


LAWS.  123 

the  colonial  regime.  Now  five  points  appeared  to  the 
Commission  to  demand,  before  all,  an  urgent  examina 
tion  :  — 

The  regime  of  the  press, 

The  legislative  and  organic  regime, 

The  judicial  organization, 

The  repression  of  vagrancy, 

The  immigration  of  new  laborers. 

In  other  words,  government,  repression,  and  labor.  The 
Provisional  Government  had,  indeed,  seriously  compromised 
these  three  highest  interests  of  every  regular  community. 
The  elections  to  the  Assembly  were  made,  and  for  a  long- 
period.  There  was  no  thought  of  taking  from  the  colonies 
the  right  of  representation.  Completely  assimilated  to  the 
natives  by  the  ordinance  of  1642,  the  colonists,  on  the 
opening  of  the  States-General  in  1187,  had  attributed  to 
themselves  the  right  to  send  deputies  ;  they  were  received 
in  1189,  and  thenceforth  in  all  the  great  assemblies  of  the 
Revolution.  The  Empire  had  taken  away  their  franchises, 
as  well  as  those  of  France.  If  the  Restoration  and  the 
Charter  of  1830  had  not  restored  them,  they  at  least  had 
endowed  the  colonies  with  local  legislatures,  and  the  cele 
brated  Commission  of  1840  had  proposed  to  restore  them 
the  right  of  representation  which  1848  returned  to  them  so 
abruptly  and  so  amply.  They  had  not  made  a  bad  use  of 
it  ;  but  could  it  be  admitted  without  fear  that  universal 
suffrage  should  be  exercised  for  the  municipal  and  general 
councils,  and  that  the  negroes,  fresh  from  the  lash,  should  be 
admitted  to  the  ballot-box  without  transition  ? 

Could  it  be  tolerated,  above  all,  that,  in  the  midst  of  a 
community  exposed  to  civil  war,  an  unbridled  press  should 
be  let  loose,  sustained  by  the  lowest  journalists,  and  held 
in  little  restraint  by  ignorant,  prejudiced,  or  trembling  ju 
ries  ?  Was  it  possible  to  perpetuate  the  decree  of  May  2, 
1848,  which,  fully  assimilating  the  colonies  to  the  mother 


124  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

country,  had  abolished  the  system  of  censorship  and  pre 
liminary  authorization  maintained  in  the  Antilles  by  the 
ordinance  of  February,  1847,  in  Bourbon  by  that  of  August 
21,  1825,  in  Guiana  by  that  of  August  27,  1828,  and  had 
thus  hurled  the  freedom  of  the  press  on  small  communities 
where  it  was  either  an  illusion  or  a  peril; — an  illusion, 
where  there  were  scarcely  any  readers,  writers,  or  printers, 
so  that  a  monopoly  was  established  by  the  impossibility  of 
competition  ;  a  danger,  on  account  of  the  antagonism  of 
religions,  colors,  opinions,  and  feuds  ?  Could  the  offences 
committed  by  the  press  be  left  to  jurors  or  assessors,  when 
the  decree  of  May  2  declared  eligible  as  assessors  all  citi 
zens  eligible  to  the  National  Assembly, —  that  is,  in  the 
terms  of  the  decree  of  March  5,  1848,  all  individuals,  even 
those  not  knowing  how  to  read  and  write  French  ?  * 

The  Commission  voted  the  promulgation  in  the  colonies 
of  the  repressive  laws  of  August  11,  1848,  and  July  27, 
1849  ;  it  exacted  a  security  of  from  5,000  to  10,000  francs, 
according  as  the  journal  were  weekly  or  daily,  payable  in 
specie  ;  it  interdicted  the  introduction  into  the  colonies  of 
writings  and  periodicals  condemned  or  seized  in  the  mother 
country,  and  prescribed  the  preliminary  deposition  of  writ 
ings  relative  to  the  colonies  ;  it  authorized  the  provisional 
suspension,  by  the  Governors,  of  a  prosecuted  journal,  and 
its  suspension  for  six  months  at  most,  or  interdiction  by  the 
Court  of  Misdemeanor  ;  it  established  special  penalties  for 
the  provocation  or  re-establishment  of  slavery,  for  the  incite 
ment  of  hatred  between  the  former  classes,  and  for  public 
insult  to  the  Governor  ;  it  remitted  the  cognizance  of  of 
fences  and  crimes  of  the  press  to  the  Court  of  Appeal  of 
each  colony,  composed  of  the  president  and  the  six  most 
ancient  magistrates,  judging  without  the  assistance  of  the 
jury,  and  on  direct  citation,  without  the  medium  of  the 
chamber  of  indictment. 

*  Report  of  M.  Tsamhert  to  the  Commission,  p.  50. 


LAWS.  125 

This  plan,  submitted  to  the  Assembly,  became  a  law,  May 
7,  1850. 

The  Assembly  deemed  it  best  to  leave  to  the  Court  of 
Misdemeanor  the  cognizance  of  the  offences  of  the  press, 
and  to  suspend  the  institution  of  the  Court*of  Magistracy, 
just  mentioned,  until  the  complete  organization  of  courts 
of  justice  in  the  colonies. 

This  important  organization  occupied  no  less  than  twenty- 
five  Atings  of  the  Commission.  Dating  back  to  1827,  the 
ancient  regime  differed  from  the  regime  of  the  mother  coun 
try  in  four  principal  points  :  — 

1.  The  removability    of  the  judicial   magistracy.      In  a 
country  where  the  firmness  of  justice  is  the  sole  bulwark  of 
peace,  removable,  the  magistracy  is  not  respected  ;  immov 
able,  it  might,  by  taking  sides,  paralyze   all  repression.     It 
was  decided,  as  a  mean  term,  that  the  judges'  seal  might  be 
changed,  but  not  revoked,  except  by  the  advice  of  a  stand 
ing  commission  of  two  Counsellors  of  State  and  three  Coun 
sellors  of  the  Court  of  Cassation,  appointed  by  their  respec 
tive  bodies  for  five  years. 

2.  Tribunals  of  the  first  instance,  composed  of  a  single 
judge. 

3.  The  absence  of  the  first  degree  of  jurisdiction  in  cases 
of  misdemeanor. 

4.  Criminal  judgments  by  assessors  joined  with  judges. 
The  colonial  courts  were  assimilated  on  all  these  points 

to  the  courts  of  the  mother  country,  except  in  the  institu 
tion  of  the  jury,  which  it  was  not  dared  establish. 

Another  chapter,  devoted  to  labor  and  immigration,  will 
recount  the  labors  of  the  Commission  concerning  this  deli 
cate  subject. 

But  before  these  labors  were  finished,  before  the  deliber 
ated  bills  were  transformed  into  laws,  the  change  of  the 
government  and  the  abrupt  ending  of  the  powers  of  the 
Assembly  interrupted  the  sittings  of  the  Commission. 


126  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

Thus  twice,  in  1840  and  1850,  the  same  men  had  the  cha 
grin  of  seeing  revolutions  thwart  their  efforts  and  ravish 
from  their  name  the  honor  of  being  united  to  useful  re 
forms  ;  yet  their  pains  were  not  without  results.  Not  only 
was  a  moral  effect  produced,  for  during  the  sittings  of  the 
Commission  the  colonies  regained  confidence,  knowing  their 
interests  in  intelligent,  liberal,  and  firm  hands  ;  but,  further 
more,  the  Commission  of  1849,  like  that  of  1850,  in  some 
sort  brought  together  and  prepared  the  materials%f  the 
colonial  legislature  ;  its  plans  have  already  been  of  service, 
and  when  it  is  wished  to  complete  the  work,  it  will  always 
be  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  them. 

The  law  of  May  f ,  1850,  has  been  abrogated  by  a  decree 
of  February  20,  1852,  which  has  placed  the  press  again 
within  the  discretionary  powers  of  the  Governors,  con 
formably  to  the  ordinances  of  the  Revolution  ;  but  the  ne 
cessity  of  certain  guaranties,  especially  concerning  cases 
of  libel,  has  led  to  the  re-establishment,  by  another  decree 
of  April  30,  1852,  of  the  competence  instituted  by  the  law 
of  May  7. 

As  to  the  twenty-seven  decrees  and  orders  of  1848,  they 
were  not  long-lived. 

The  ninth,  on  savings  banks  ;  the  tenth,  on  a  new  appor 
tionment  of  taxation ;  the  seventeenth,  on  marine  recruital 
and  registration  ;  the  second,  on  charities  ;  and  the  third, 
on  schools, — have  never  been  executed,  or  else  have  been 
replaced  by  measures  adopted  by  the  Governors. 

Jhe  fourth,  relative  to  cantonal  juries,  was  abrogated 
by  Article  11  of  the  decree  of  February  13,  1852,  on  bound 
labor,  which  also  replaced  the  seventh  decree,  on  vagrancy, 
and  the  eighth,  which  instituted  a  system  of  penal  labor. 

The  fifth  and  sixth,  on  national  works,  have  been  nullified 
by  the  energetic  measure  which  licensed  them  in  France. 

The  eleventh,  which  established  a  festival  of  labor,  several 
times  solemnized,  has  fallen  into  desuetude. 


LAWS.  127 

The  twelfth,  which  suppressed  the  colonial  and  general 
councils  and  the  functions  of  delegates,  useless  since  the 
Constitution  had  admitted  the  colonies  to  the  national  rep 
resentation,  was  abrogated  by  the  Constitution  of  1852, 
which  no  longer  admits  them,  as  well  as  by  the  Instruction 
for  elections,  rendered  in  execution  of  the  decree  of  March 
5,  1848. 

The  thirteenth  decree,  on  forced  expropriation,  is  still  in 
vigor,  but  is  limited  to  giving  effect  to  the  bill  under  dis 
cussion  by  the  Chamber  of  Peers  at  the  time  of  the  Revo 
lution  of  February. 

The  fifteenth,  on  the  powers  of  the  Commissioners-Gen 
eral,  ended  with  their  mission. 

The  sixteenth,  on  the  press,  was  replaced  by  the  statute 
of  May  7,  1850. 

There  remains,  therefore,  of  the  legislative  edifice  of  1848, 
but  a  single,  yet  indestructible  stone,  —  the  immortal  de 
cree  *  which  forever  abolishes  slavery,  a  civil  law  which  is 
only  the  final  promulgation  of  the  natural  law. 

*  It  again  appeared  necessary  to  abrogate,  in  part,  Article  8  of  this  decree, 
thus  conceived :  — 

"  In  future,  even  in  foreign  countries,  it  is  interdicted  all  Frenchmen  to  hold, 
buy,  or  sell  slaves,  or  to  participate,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  any  traffic  or 
profit  of  this  kind.  Any  infraction  of  these  prohibitions  will  involve  the  loss 
of  the  quality  of  French  citizen. 

"Nevertheless,  Frenchmen  subject  to  these  prohibitions  at  the  moment  of 
the  promulgation  of  the  present  decree  shall  have  a  delay  of  three  years  in 
which  to  conform  to  them.  Those  who  shall  become  possessors  of  slaves 
in  foreign  countries  by  inheritance,  gift,  or  marriage,  shall,  urttler  the  same  pen 
alty,  emancipate  or  alienate  them  in  the  same  length  of  time,  dating  from  the  day 
when  their  possession  shall  have  commenced." 

The  English  law  (George  IV.,  June  24,  1834)  subjects  Englishmen  who  are 
voluntarily  holders  of  slaves  to  a  fine  of  £  100  per  slave,  with  seizure,  but  tol 
erates  involuntary  possession.  (Art.  67.) 

More  logical  and  more  moral,  the  French  law  declared  that  it  would  no  longer 
recognize  a  Frenchman  in  a  slaveholder.  The  penalty  of  denationalization  has 
been  maintained  against  the  buyer  or  seller  of  slaves. 

But,  taking  into  consideration  the  embarrassing  position  of  Frenchmen,  num 
bering,  it  is  said,  about  20,000,  settled  in  a  slave  country,  and  often  subjected 
by  the  decree  to  the  alternative  of  impracticable  emancipation,  a  loss  without 


128  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

This  solemn  declaration  has  been  repeated  by  the  Sena- 
tus  Consultum,  May  3,  1854,  an  act  which  is  the  constitu 
tion  of  the  colonies,  and  the  framing  of  which  was  confided 
to  the  Senate  by  Article  21  of  the  Constitution  of  1852. 

By  the  terms  of  this  Senatus  Consultum,  the  Senate  and 
the  Emperor,  in  a  Council  of  State,  share  the  legislative 
power  of  the  colonies.  The  latter  send  to  France  three  sal 
aried  delegates,  who  compose,  with  four  members  appointed 
by  the  government,  a  committee,*  presided  over  by  the  Min 
ister  of  the  Marine,  and  purely  consultative.  General  Coun 
cils  assist  the  Governors  in  the  establishment  of  taxes  and 
the  use  of  revenues,  and  have  power  to  emit  suffrages,  like 
the  General  Councils  of  our  departments. 

The  Governors  exercise  ordinary  and  extraordinary  pow 
ers,  under  the  direct  authority  of  the  Minister  of  the  Ma 
rine.  There  is  no  longer  a  Colonial  Council.  There  are 
no  longer  deputies.  There  is  no  longer  a  military  com 
mandant. 

In  short,  the  colonies  are  ruled  on  the  one  hand  by  the 
great  ordinances  of  the  Restoration,  and  on  the  other  by 
the  Senatus  Consultum  of  1854.f  The  same  administration 
as  before  1830,  and  a  more  concentrated  power  than  after 
wards,  —  such  is  the  result  of  these  political  revolutions. 


indemnity,  and  the  forfeiture  of  the  title  of  Frenchmen,  the  Legislative  As 
sembly  accorded  ten  years  for  emancipation. 

This  delay  was  on  the  point  of  expiring,  when  another  statute,  May,  185S, 
definitively  excepted  from  the  application  of  the  decree  of  1848,  French  slave 
owners  whose  possession  had  been  anterior  to  this  decree,  or  had  resulted  from 
inheritance,  donation,  or  marriage. 

Thus  a  Frenchman  may  hold  slaves  in  a  foreign  country,  but  can  neither  buy 
nor  sell  them,  —  a  singular  arrangement,  as  impracticable  as  Art.  8  of  the 
decree  of  1848,  but  much  less  moral.  The  absolute  principle  hampered  the 
practice,  neither  more  nor  less,  and  did  more  honor  to  the  French  law. 

*  Decree  of  July  29,  1854. 

t  Other  laws  have  been  especially  designed  to  extend  to  the  colonies  the 
civil  state,  the  Code  of  Commerce,  the  civil  legislature,  and  the  civil  and  crim 
inal  procedure  of  the  mother  country.  ( Statutes  of  Dec.  6  and  7, 1850,  decrees 
of  Jan.  22, 1852,  Jan.  15.  1853.  etc.) 


LAWS.  129 

As  to  the  social  revolution  which  set  free  the  slaves,  what 
exceptional  or  new  laws  has  it  exacted  ?  None  !  Of  the 
preparatory  laws  of  the  Monarchy  of  July,  the  seventeen 
decrees  of  the  Republic  of  February,  the  measures  prepared 
by  the  Commission  of  1840,  the  plans  elaborated  by  the 
Commission  of  1849,  nothing  remains. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  deplore  the  unfruitfulness  of  so 
much  pains  ;  from  the  special  stand-point  I  occupy,  I  can 
not  complain  of  it. 

For  it  had  been  thought  that  the  so-much-dreaded  act  of 
the  abolition  of  slavery  could  not  be  accomplished  without 
a  complete  alteration  of  the  laws,  —  without  being  pre 
ceded,  accompanied,  and  followed  by  infinite  precautions, 
combinations,  and  guaranties,  prepared  with  consummate 
art  and  multiplied  cares  ;  events  have  taken  it  upon  them 
selves  to  annul  or  to  crush  all  legislative  measures,  and 
things  have  happened,  through  a  thousand  vicissitudes,  in 
a  manner  to  prove  that  a  single  and  only  law  was  neces 
sary,  —  the  law  thus  couch%d  :  Slavery  is  abolished. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

MILITAEY   FORCE. 

RESPECT  for  the  laws  is  a  sentiment  belonging  to  civilized 
communities  ;  the  fear  offeree  is  the  only  curb  of  imperfect 
ly  developed  nations.     We  readily  conceive,  therefore,  that 
the   government  would  not  have  sent  laws  to   the  newly 
freed  men  which  they  would  not  have  understood,  but  sup 
pose  that  it  sent  them  gendarmes  instead.     Emancipation 
has  ffbt  exacted  exceptional  laws,  but  perhaps  it  has  ex 
acted  the  use  of  exceptional  force,  perhaps  security  is  only 
the  fragile  result  of  continued  intimidation. 

In  the  report  of  1840,  to  whish  it  is  necessary  constantly 
to  revert,  M.  de  Broglie  inquires  what  force  would  be  de 
manded  for  the  maintenance  of  order  in  each  colony  when 
emancipation   should  be  proclaimed,  after  a  slow   prepara 
tion  ;  he  had  no  doubt  that  this  great  event  would  necessi 
tate  the  increase  of  the  garrisons.     What  would  he  have 
demanded,  then,  could  he  have  foreseen  that  it  would  be  the 
immediate  result  of  a  revolution  ? 

Let  us  compare  the   effective  force   of  the  garrisons  in 
1840  with  that  which  figures  in  the  budget  of  1861.* 
At  Martinico,  there  were,  in  1840,  3,026  men,  viz.  :  — 
Troops  of  the  line       .......     2,512 

Gendarmes    ........  143 

Workmen 366 


Total   .        .         . 3,026 

*  These  figures  do"  not  include  the  garrisons  of  ports,  the  sanitary  service, 
and  the  militia. 


MILITARY   FORCE.  131 

The  Commission  demanded  :  *  — 

500  gendarmes, 

500  mountain  chasseurs. 

In  1860,  the  garrison  was  only  1,384  men,f  viz.  :  - 
8  companies  of  infantry,  115  men  each,  and  their  staff     964 
Mounted  gendarmes     .         .         .         .         .         .         .142 

Gendarmes  on  foot    .......  24 

2  companies  of  artillery 204 

Workmen  50 


Total 1,384 

At  Guadaloupe,  there  were,  in  1840,  2,912  men,  viz. :  — 

1  regiment  of  infantry 2,512 

1  company  of  gendarmery      .         .         .         .         .  148 

2  companies,  artillery  and  workmen  .         .         .         .        252 


'Total 2,912 

The  Commission  J  demanded  a  foot  company  of  gen 
darmes,  and  a  third  company  of  artillery. 

The  budget  of  1861  §  establishes  the  effective  force  at 
1,384  men,  as  at  Martinico,  viz.  :  — 

Line   ...         .* 964 

Gendarmes 166 

Artillery  and  workmen        ......  254 


Total 1,384 

To  which  are  added  150  native  troops. 

At  Guiana,  there  were,  in  1840,  985  men,  viz.  :  — 

1  battalion  of  infantry  and  one  black  company     .         .868 
-|  company  of  artillery  and  workmen         .         .         .  67 

^  company  of  gendarmery    .         .         .         .         .         .50 

Total          .        .        .       '.   •     .        .        .         985 
The  Commission   of  1840   found   this   garrison,   recently 
augmented,  sufficient. 

*  F.  78.  t  Budget,  p.  106.  f  Report,^.  76.  §  Budget,  p.  111. 


132  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

In  1860,  the  garrison,  including  that  of  the  penitentiary, 
which  holds  4,000  convicts,  was  1,121  men,  viz.  :  — 

Infantry  and  negroes 868 

Artillery 76 

Gendarmes  .         .       177 


Total 1,121 

At   Bourbon,    the   garrison,  in    1840,    was    1,T19    men, 
viz.  :  — 

12  companies  of  infantry    .         .         .         .         .         .1,412 

1|  companies  of  artillery          .         .         .  .  156 

•^  company  of  workmen       .         .         .         .         .         .         51 

1  company  of  mounted  gendarmes  ....  100 


Total 1,719 

The   Commission  was   also   satisfied   with  this  garrison, 
doubled  in  the  preceding  two  years. 
In  1860,  it  was  composed  only  of  691  men,  viz.  :  — 

4  companies  of  infantry        ......     480 

1  company  of  artillery       .         .         .         .         .         .  71 

1  detachment  of  workmen     .         .         .         .         .         .34 

Gendarmes        ........         106 

Total 691 

M.  de  Broglie,  in  estimating  at  3,328,000  francs  the  first 
expense  necessary  to  this  augmentation  of  the  armed  force, 
adds  these  significant  words  *  :  — 

"  This  sum  does  not  constitute  an  expense  suited  to 
emancipation ;  it  is  necessary  to  augment  the  armed  force 
in  any  hypothesis  ;  the  maintenance  of  slavery  will  hence 
forth  exact  at  least  as  many  precautions  as  the  establish 
ment  of  freedom." 

He  was  right.  8,642  soldiers  were  not  sufficient  to  guard 
249,408  slaves,  dispersed  among  120,472  masters  or  freed- 
men.  4,791  soldiers  hold  in  peace  400,000  freemen. 

*  Report,  p.  79. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

COUKTS   OF  JUSTICE. 

IF  the  law  be  not  exceptional,  if  the  force  be  not  aug 
mented,  perhaps  repression  has  been  exorbitant,  and  we 
.shall  find  in  the  severity  of  the  tribunals  the  explanation 
of  the  peace. 

The  organization  of  the  courts  of  justice,  which  inspired  so 
much  distrust  in  the  friends  of  liberty  before  1848,*  and  so 
much  uneasiness  in  the  friends  of  order  after  1848,  has  been 
modified  only  by  the  decrees  of  August  9  arid  16,  1854. 

The  justices  of  the  peace,  whose  increase  was  foreseen 
and  solicited  by  the  Commission  of  1840,  in  view  of  the 
numerous  difficulties  of  detail  which  emancipation  would 
excite  and  bring  before  their  conciliating  and  prompt  au 
thority,  —  the  justices  of  the  peace  have  been  scarcely 
increased  in  number. 

There  were  at  Martinico  4  justices  of  the  peace  for  26 
communes  ;f  the  Commission  demanded  26  ;  J  in  the  budget 
of  1861,  8  are  found. 

At  Guadaloupe,  6  justices  of  the  peace  for  24  communes, 
in  1840  ;  the  Commission  proposed  24 ;  there  are  10. 

At  Guiana,  3  for  14  communes  ;  the  Commission  demanded 
14  ;  there  are  7.§ 

At  Bourbon,  6  for  14  communes  ;  the  Commission  de 
manded  14  ;  there  are  8. 

*  See  Schoelcher,  1847,  Tom.  II.  p.  146. 

t  See  theproces-verbaux  of  the  Commission  of  1849,  Part  II.  Report  of  M. 
Isambert,  p.  292,  and  Discussions. 

|  Report,  pp.  84,  85.  §  Budget,  p.  64. 


134  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Have  these  33  tribunals  of  peace,  the  16  tribunals  of  first 
instance,  and  the  4  Courts  of  Appeals  been  more  busy  in 
condemning  since  1848  than  before  it? 

This  is  somewhat  difficult  to  ascertain,  as  the  Marine 
Department  published  in  1845  and  1846  the  report  of  the 
administration  of  colonial  justice  for  the  years  1837,  1838, 
and  1839  ;  in  1855  it  published  the  reports  for  1850,  1851, 
and  1852  ;  but  the  blank  from  1839  to  1849  has  not  been 
filled  up,  and  since  1852  no  report  has  been  published. 

Nevertheless,  the  comparison  between  the  years  1837  - 
1839  and  1850  -  1852  is  not  without  interest ;  perhaps  even 
the  parallel  between  the  years  nearer  and  more  distant  from* 
emancipation  would  be  less  instructive.  In  fact,  1846  and 
1847  were  signalized  by  suits  in  which  the  partiality  of  the 
magistrates  towards  the  masters  was  signalized  as  scan 
dalous,  even  in  the  Chambers.  "  I  am  ashamed  to  say," 
exclaimed  M.  Jules  de  Lasteyrie,  in  the  meeting  of  May  7, 
1847,  "  that  there  is  no  wish  to  suppress  crime  in  the  colo 
nies."* 

M.  Ternaux-Compans  added  :  "  The  Minister  spends  his 
life  in  hoping  and  regretting.  He  always  hopes  that  some 
one  will  execute  his  orders,  then  comes  to  tell  us  that  he 
regrets  that  they  have  not  been  executed." 

"  We  are  assured,"  said  M.  Dupin  a  few  days  before, 
"that  care  will  be  taken  that  it  shall  be  different,  if  such 
facts  happen  again.  Are  none  but  second  offences  pun 
ished,  then,  in  the  colonies  ?  The  report  declares  that  jus 
tice  is  incomplete  in  the  colonies.  » Where  there  is  not  com 
plete  justice,  there  is  no  justice."  The  Court  of  Cassation 
admitted  thirteen  appeals  at  once  against  thirty  decisions 
of  the  Colonial  Courts,  on  questions  of  emancipation,  April 
27,  1847.  The  Chamber  of  Deputies  refused  the  appropria 
tion  demanded  to  increase  the  personnel  of  the  public  Min 
istry,  May  7, 1847.  M.  Guizot,  Minister  of  the  Marine  pro 

*  Report  on  the  Administration  of  Colonial  Justice,  1855,  p   6. 


COURTS   OF   JUSTICE.  135 

tern.,  presented  a  bill  of  reform  in  the  composition  of  the 
Colonial  Courts  of  Assizes,  May  21,  1847. 

It  will  be  understood,  therefore,  that  we  do  not  wish  to 
take  as  a  standard  of  comparison  years  wherein  justice  de 
served  such  reproaches. 

On  the  other  hand,  1848  and  1849  were  probably  too  much 
or  too  little  repressive  ;  — too  much,  where  the  courts  were 
disorganized  or  intimidated  ;  too  little,  where  they  were 
forced  to  intimidate  in  turn,  by  making  examples  or  by 
giving  place  to  councils  of  war. 

There  are,  in  short,  good  reasons,  therefore,  for  being 
contented  with  the  published  documents,  and  comparing 
regular  years,  like  1837-1839,  with  the  years  1850-1853, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  the  normal  ex 
istence  of  the  new  society. 

We  will  endeavor  to  answer  these  two  questions  :  - 

1.  Is  colonial  society  afflicted  by  more  crimes  and  mis 
demeanors  since  the  abolition  of  slavery  than  before  it  ? 

2.  Is  colonial  society  dishonored  by  more  crimes  and  mis 
demeanors  than  French  society  ? 

I.  It  must  be  remembered,  that  before  1848  the  misde 
meanors  of  the  slaves  were  rarely  carried  before  the  courts  ; 
each  plantation  had  its  penal  law,  its  judge,  and  its  execu 
tioners.  One  thing  was  lacking  in  these  tribunals,  judging 
with  closed  doors, — the  defence.  Ordinances  intervened  to 
mitigate  the  application  of  the  lash  and  other  corporal  pun 
ishments,  but  did  not  suppress  them.  The  lash  was  the  last 
article  in  that  odious  series  of  self-evident  axioms  which 
was,  as  it  were,  the  second  credo  of  all  slaveholders,  even 
the  best,  —  sugar  is  necessary  to  man,  the  slave  to  sugar, 
the  lash  to  the  slave. 

We  must  expect,  therefore,  to  see  an  enormous  increase 
in  the  number  of  crimes  carried  before  the  courts,  and  of 
which  they  were  not  before  cognizant. 

Distrust,  fears,  and  rancors  must  also,  during  the  first 


136  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

years,  have  inevitably  increased  this  number,  especially 
that  of  complaints,  official  reports,  and  denunciations,  which 
must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  number  of  condem 
nations. 

In  fact,  the  number  of  complaints  in  1837  - 1839  was 
8,099. 

We  have  the  statistics  for  1845-1847  ;  in  these  years  of 
feeble  repression,  it  was  12,000. 

In  1850-1852  it  amounted  to  14,m. 

The  number  of  indictments  likewise  rose  from  1  in  249 
inhabitants  to  1  in  186. 

But,  of  14,000  cases,  more  than  half,  about  7,000,  were 
classed  by  the  parquets  as  not  giving  rise  to  prosecutions, 
either  because  the  facts  were  not  serious  enough  or  not 
sufficiently  proved,  because  they  constituted  neither  crime 
nor  offence,  or  because  the  criminals  remained  unknown.* 

Of  less  than  4,000  cases  brought  in  the  three  years  before 
the  Chambers  of  Indictment,  there  were  nearly  800  decisions 
of  non-jurisdiction,  or  about  20  per  cent ;  a  high  figure,  yet 
inferior  to  that  of  1837-1839,  which  had  been  40  per  cent. 

1682  cases  were  referred  to  the  Court  of  Misdemeanors  ; 
1427  only  were  brought  before  the  Court  of  Assizes,  which 
thus  received  exactly  one  tenth  of  the  complaints  and  de 
nunciations. 

Among  the  crimes  prosecuted  are  found  fraudulent  bank 
ruptcies,  forgeries,  embezzlement  of  the  public  funds,  coun 
terfeiting  of  money,  corruption  of  officials,  numerous  rapes 
and  attempted  violations,  —  crimes  which  evidently  are  not 
all  imputable  to  the  former  slaves,  —  and  armed  assaults, 
rebellion,  etc.,  which  were  the  result  of  political  troubles. 

But  what  is  characteristic  is  the  proportion  of  the  number 
of  crimes  against  the  person,  compared  with  that  of  crimes 
against  property. 

In  1837-1839,  47  per  cent  of  the  indictments  were  for 

*  Report,  pp.  22,  23. 


COURTS   OF   JUSTICE.  137 

crimes  against  the  person ;  in  1850-1852,  there  were  but  21 
per  cent.  In  the  first  period,  on  the  contrary,  but  53  per 
cent  of  the  indictments  were  for  crimes  against  property, 
which  rose  to  79  per  cent  in  the  second  ;  and  almost  all  of 
these  crimee  were  thefts.  Thus  there  was  less  hatred,  less 
revenge,  after  than  during  slavery,  —  a  great  result,  — 
while  there  were  more  thefts,  at  least  more  prosecutions  for 
theft ;  for  every  one  knows  how  frequent  were  larcenies 
under  the  system  of  slavery,  but  the  lash  took  satisfaction 
for  them.  Theft  is  not  a  result  of  emancipation  ;  it  is  a 
habit  acquired  in  slavery.  When  one  has  nothing  of  his 
own,  he  must  necessarily  take  that  which  is  another's. 
One  only  respects  property  when  he  has  the  enjoyment  or 
hope  of  it.  The  privation  of  freedom  makes  murderers  ; 
the  privation  of  property  makes  thieves. 

''The  increase  in  the  number  of  indictments  of  all  kinds/' 
says  the  Minister  in  his  report,  "  arises  from  the  fact  that  a 
host  of  misdeeds  which,  before  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
found,  for  the  most  part,  disciplinary  and  purely  arbitrary 
repression  within  the  plantations,  have  since  come  before 

the  Courts  of  Assizes Almost  all  of  these  are  thefts 

committed  by  the  former  slaves This  frequency  of 

theft  needs  to  be  repressed  ;  yet  the  penal  legislation  should 
be  mitigated,*  for  it  is  due  to  justice  and  humanity  not  to 
apply  too  severe  penalties  to  deeds  which  lose  their  gravity 
by  reason  of  the  backward  state  of  morality  of  the  social 
class  to  which  the  delinquents  belong."  f 

Another  grievance  against  slavery,  —  not  only  had  it  en 
couraged  theft,  but  it  had  not  moralized  the  slave.  Despite 
so  many  fine  promises  and  wise  regulations,  instruction 
went  on  diminishing  from  day  to  day.  In  1837-1839,  75 
per  cent  of  the  accused  could  not  read  ;  in  1850-1852,  90 
per  cent. 

*  This  took  place  at  Guiana,  by  a  decree,  Aug.  16, 1854. 
f  Report,  p.  26. 


138  THE   FKENCH   COLONIES. 

Of  2,000  accused,  about  one  fourth  were  acquitted,  and, 
of  the  1,500  found  guilty,  more  than  1,000  were  sentenced 
only  to  penalties  for  misdemeanor. 

The  number  of  cases  carried  before  the  Courts  of  Misde 
meanor,  police  courts,  and  justices  of  the  peace,  increased 
in  a  larger  proportion  than  that  of  cases  brought  before  the 
Court  of  Assizes.  "  This  increase,"  says  the  Minister,* 
"  arises,  as  with  crimes,  from  the  twofold  circumstance, 
that,  on  one  hand,  the  measure  of  emancipation  was  in  the 
beginning  the  occasion  of  excesses  appearing  in  the  form 
of  vagrancy  or  misdemeanors,  to  those  to  whom  it  was  ap 
plied,  and,  on  the  other,  the  cognizance  of  these  deeds, 
which,  before  emancipation,  belonged  to  the  disciplinary 
power  of  the  plantation,  has  since  been  necessarily  brought 
within  the  ordinary  penal  jurisdiction." 

It  must  be  added,  that  the  statute  on  vagrancy,  and  the 
local  laws  on  livrets,^  disciplinary  works,  etc.,  have  given 
rise  to  a  host  of  special  misdemeanors,  unknown  during  the 
period  of  183T-1839. 

In  short,  since  1852,  the  reports  of  the  criminal  courts 
establish,  that,  if  the  number  of  prosecutions  has  increased, 
it  is  rather  on  account  of  the  suppression  of  the  lash  than 
of  tlje  increase  of  crimes  and  misdemeanors  ;  there  is  more 
theft,  but  the  courts  are  less  surprised  at  it  than  at  the  ig 
norance  in  which  the  masters  had  left  their  slaves  ;  there  is 
less  murder,  arid  freedom  has  disarmed  vengeance. 

The  first  effervescence  of  emancipation  turned  many  heads, 
but  they  are  now  calmed  again  ;  there  is  not  one  second 
offence  in  a  hundred  among  crimes,  not  even  one  in  a  hun 
dred  among  misdemeanors. J 


*  Report,  p.  24. 

t  Small  books,  carried  by  the  workmen,  containing  an  ordinary  passport, 
with  the  date  of  entering  and  leaving  the  places  where  they  work,  and  subject 
to  the  inspection  of  the  police. 

f  Report,  p.  34. 


COURTS  OF  JUSTICE.  139 

In  the  nomenclature  of  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  there 
is  not  a  single  coalition  to  raise  wages. 

In  the  nomenclature  of  commercial  cases,  there  are  one, 
two,  or  three  bankruptcies  a  year  in  each  colony. 

I  repeat  that  the  statistics  since  1852  have  not  been  pub 
lished.  Statements  are  contained  in  the  reports  or  opening 
addresses  of  the  Procureurs-General.  These  documents 
comprise  useful  information,  but  such  as  we  must  despair 
of  presenting  in  a  methodical  manner  ;  they  are  not  drawn 
up  in  a  uniform  style,  neither  do  they  all  embrace  the  same 
periods.  Moreover,  since  1854,  the  law  has  extended  the 
competence  of  courts  of  the  first  instance  and  justices  of 
the  peace.  From  this  result  changes  in  figures  which  do 
not  correspond  to  changes  in  facts. 

It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  immigration  commenced  in 
the  Antilles.  Now  all  admit  that  the  presence  of  immigrants 
has  increased  crimes,  especially  murders,  in  a  deplorable 
manner. 

However  this  may  be,  I  read  in  the  reports  of  the  Isle  of 
Bourbon,  that  the  gendarmery  effected  1,868  arrests  in  1854, 
1,782  only  in  1859  ;  and  of  this  number  official  reports 
point  out :  — 

In  1854,  579  vagrants;  635  in  1856. 

"  290  without  livrets;  124         " 

"  5  refusing  to  labor ;  34         " 

These  figures,  which  are  nearly  the  same,  are  not,  assur 
edly,  excessive. 

At  Guadaloupe,  I  read*in  the  reports  of  1853-1856,  that 
the  number  of  complaints  diminished  until  1854,  then  in 
creased,  then  diminished  anew  ;  that  crimes  against  prop 
erty  increased  ;  that  crimes  against  the  person  diminished  ; 
that  the  number  of  civil  and  commercial  suits  increased,  — 
a  progress  which  attests  the  resumption  of  activity.  At 
Martinico,  the  same  facts  are  more  methodically  presented. 


140 


THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 


Justices'  Courts. 

Courts  of  the  First  Instance. 

Number  of  Complaints. 

Years. 

Cases. 

Civil  Suits. 

Commercial 
Suits. 

Court  of 

Assizes. 

Tribunals. 

1852 

1486 

999 

267 

755 

1206 

1853 

1692 

780 

467 

653 

1046 

1854 

2294 

895 

473 

529 

1169 

1855 

3446 

736 

503 

241 

1470 

1856 

2771 

687 

419 

203 

1442 

1857 

2227 

559 

464 

188 

1424 

Years 

Crimes  sentenced  by  the  Court  of  Assizes. 

Against  the  Person. 

Against  Property. 

1852 

31 

87 

1853 

21 

87 

1854 

29 

89 

1855 

30 

88 

1856 

21 

75 

1857 

27* 

69 

Always  the  same  result,  —  diminution  till  1854  ;  then,  in 
consequence  of  a  more  lively  impulse  given  to  prosecutions, 
a  change  of  cognizances,  and  the  presence  of  immigrants, 
increase  till  1854,  attaining  its  maximum  in  1855,  then  dimi 
nution. 

Always  an  enormous  excess  of  crime  against  property 
over  crime  against  the  person,  always  an  enormous  propor 
tion  of  illiterate  criminals,  —  nine  tenths  at  Guadaloupe,  four 
fifths  at  Martinico,  and  among  women,  the  whole. 

II.  If  now,  making  use  only  of  the  figures  published  offi 
cially  in  1855,  we  compare  them  with  the  figures  of  the  last 
General  Statistics  of  Criminality  in  France  for  1856,  we  ascer 
tain  that  theft  is  not  a  misdemeanor  reserved  to  the  colonies. 
In  France,  from  1826  to  1850,  the  number  of  qualified  thefts, 
thanks  to  the  indulgence  of  the  magistrates,  diminished,  but 
that  of  simple  thefts  tripled.  Theft  grows  with  the  progress 
of  wealth  and  covetousness,  and  decreases  with  the  pro- 


COURTS   OF  JUSTICE.  141 

gress  of  morality  and  instruction.  The  crimes  against  the 
person  brought  before  the  Court  of  Assizes  in  France  in 
creased  31  per  cent,  while  the  population  increased  only  12 
per  cent ;  the  crimes  against  property  diminished  16  per 
cent, — inversely  to  the  colonies.  Arsons  and  attempts  at 
violation  increased  more  than  in  the  colonies.  There  was 
1  prisoner  held  for  misdemeanor  in  171  inhabitants  ;  in  the 
colonies,  only  1  in  186. 

But  in  the  colonies,  90  per  cent  of  the  accused  were 
illiterate  ;  in  France,  55  per  cent  only. 

In  short,  if  emancipation  has  increased  the  number  of 
misdemeanors  and  crimes,  it  is  rather  in  appearance  than  in 
reality,  and  because  the  regular  course  of  justice  has  taken 
the  place  of  repression  ;  but  even  the  number  revealed  by 
the  statistics  goes  on  decreasing  or  remains  nearly  station 
ary  ;  it  is  proportionally  inferior  to  that  of  misdemeanors 
and  crimes  in  France,  and  colonial  society,  on  the  mor 
row  of  an  unheard-of  transformation,  which  has  set  at 
liberty  propensities,  revenges,  and  cupidities,  sleeps  more 
tranquilly  than  the  civilized  population  of  the  mother 
country. 

The  crimes  still  committed  are  individual  faults  ;  slavery 
was  a  social  crime.  The  latter,  at  least,  exists  no  longer. 

It  is  difficult  to  dispute  what  passes  in  the  streets  in  broad 
daylight.  It  will  therefore  be  willingly  admitted,  I  hope, 
that  freedom  is  not  responsible  for  the  disorders  of  1848  and 
1849,  and  that  since  this  time  it  has  exacted,  for  the  main 
tenance  of  tranquillity  in  the  colonies,  no  exceptional  law, 
no  extraordinary  force,  no  abnormal  repression. 

Yes,  reply  the  colonists,  we  are  not  massacred,  but  we 
are  ruined.  The  negroes  do  not  pillage  us,  but  they  do  not 
work.  We  have  been  able  to  save  ourselves  only  by  in 
demnity,  a  large  reduction  of  duty  on  sugars,  coffees,  &c., 
and  a  costly  immigration,  and,  despite  these  measures,  our 


142  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

ancient  prosperity  has  forever  vanished  ;  we  are  afflicted  by 
continual  crises  ;  we  lack  capital,  labor,  and  credit. 
We  will  take  up  each  one  of  these  points : 

1.  Indemnity; 

2.  Production  and  commerce  ; 

3.  The  question  of  sugars  ; 

4.  Labor  and  immigration. 


CHAPTE'R    IX. 

•  INDEMNITY. 

To  hear  the  colonists  who  demanded  indemnity,  they 
were  expropriated  ;  they  should  have  been  paid,  not  only 
the  value  of  their  property,  but  a  sum  for  the  damage 
caused  the  property  of  the  soil  by  this  dispossession  of 
implements.  If  these  pretensions  had  been  listened  to,  it 
would  have  been  necessary  to  repurchase  the  colonies  in  full. 

But  the  slave  is  not  property,  and  it  is  precisely  for  this 
that  he  is  freed  ;  emancipation  is  not  the  deprivation  of  the 
right  of  property,  it  is  the  negation  of  it. 

If  we  carried  out  these  principles  to  their  extent,  it  is  to 
the  slave  that  indemnity  would  be  due,  as  he  has  been  de 
prived  violently  of  the  fruit  of  his  labor.  The  slave-trade 
having  been  abolished  by  law  in  1848,  it  would  only  have 
been  necessary  to  institute  a  strict  search  into  the  origin  of 
all  the  slaves  held  in  1848,*  to  declare  a  great  number  of  the 
masters  in  the  very  act  of  criminal  possession. 

This  pretended  property  does  not  rest  on  the  principles 
of  veritable  property  ;  neither  has  it  the  essential  character 
istics  thereof.  The  right  of  property  is  absolute,  perpetual, 
indefinite,  incommutable  ;  the  possession  of  slaves  implies 
duties,  conditions,  variations,  no  guaranty  of  duration. f 

In  fine,  veritable  property  is  founded  on  natural  right. 
The  work  of  the  law,  slavery  may  be  destroyed  %y  the  law. 
The  government  of  Denmark,  when  it  proclaimed  emancipa- 

*  This  proposition  was  made  in  the  Commission  of  1848.    Proces-verbaux, 
p.  65. 
t  Report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  pp.  263  -  265. 


144  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

tion,  set  out  from  the  principle  that  every  state  has  a  right 
to  modify  the  conditions  which  it  imposes  on  commerce, 
arts,  and  manufactures,  and  even  the  conditions  of  property, 
when  they  are  not  in  harmony  with  morality  and  the  gen 
eral  good.*  Without  going  so  far  as  to  apply  this  doctrine 
to  the  right  of  property,  since  it  is  anterior  and  superior  to 
the  law,  it  is  just  to  extend  it  to  exceptional  kinds  of  prop 
erty,  which  are  the  work  of  the  law,  as  charges  and  offices, 
monopolies  resulting  from  a  tariff,  —  in  fine,  as  slavery,  a 
strange  fiction  which  the  state  has  created,  an  exorbitant 
favor  which  the  state  has  conceded.")"  This  fiction,  this  fa 
vor,  it  has  the  power  to  destroy,  since  it  has  made  them  ; 
it  has  the  right,  since  it  has  the  duty. 

The  right  to  indemnity,  therefore,  is  in  no  wise  of  the 
same  order  as  the  right  to  freedom  ;  the  second  is  claimed 
by  nature,  the  first  is  sustained  only  by  considerations  of 
equity. 

If  slavery  be  not  a  legitimate  fact,  it  is  at  least  a  legal  fact. 
The  law  has  known,  authorized,  encouraged  it.  The  pos 
sessor  is  such  in  good  faith,  his  error  has  been  caused  by 
the  error  of  the  legislator,  arid  this  double  error  has  en 
dured  two  hundred  years.  The  commerce  of  the  mother 
country  encouraged  this  baleful  institution  because  it  prof 
ited  by  it.  Subsequently,  the  treasury  favored  indigenous 
sugar,  because  it  profited  by  it  also.  France  had  thus  been 
an  accomplice  in  different  ways,  both  in  the  faults  of  the 
colonies  and  in  their  ruin.  It  was  equitable  that  it  should 
indemnify  them. 

Furthermore,  this  was  useful,  and  before  all  useful  to  the 
interests  of  the  slaves.  Freedom  would  be  misery  to  them, 
if  on  the  morrow  the  ruined  colonists  could  not  pay  them 
their  wages.  Indemnity  is  a  subsidy  to  free  labor,  it  is  an 
advance  of  wages. 

*  Despatch  of  the  French  Minister  at  Copenhagen,  Aug.  27,  1847,  cited  in 
the  proccs-verbaux  of  the  Commission  of  1848,  p.  136. 
t  Report  of  M.  de  Kroglie,  p.  273. 


INDEMNITY.  145 

From  this  stand-point,  which  is  the  true  one,  it  was  im 
portant  that  the  indemnity  should  be  both  prompt  and  large ; 
it  obtained  neither  f^omptness  nor  generosity. 

Article  5  of  the  decree  of  April  27,  1848,  left  to  the  Na 
tional  Assembly  the  care  of  regulating  the  quota  of  the 
indemnity. 

All  the  colonists  heard  by  the  Commission  of  1848  had 
demanded  a  delay  before  emancipation,  in  order  to  be  able 
to  gather  in  the  crops  and  to  take  precautionary  meas 
ures,  and  no  delay  before  indemnity,  in  order  that  wages 
might  serve  as  the  immediate  attraction  to  free  labor,  and 
that  aid  might  be  secured  to  children  and  the  infirm.*  They 
reminded  the  Commission  that  it  had  been  possible  to  main 
tain  labor  in  the  English  colonies  because  indemnity  had 
preceded  emancipation.f  They  added,  that  the  negro  would 
distrust  his  freedom,  so  long  as  his  former  master  were  not 
indemnified,  and  that  he  would  thus  be  impelled  to  go  far 
from  the  plantations. 

The  Commission  presided  over  by  M.  de  BroglieJ  pro 
posed  a  delay  of  ten  years,  during  which  the  interest  of  the 
indemnity  would  be  received  by  the  consignment  fund  for 
the  benefit  of  the  colonists,  but  not  by  themselves  individu 
ally,  their  rights  being  only  certain  and  liquidated  at  the 
moment  of  emancipation. 

The  Commission  of  1848  dared  not  impose  on  the  Republic 
a  burden  before  which  the  Monarchy  had  recoiled.  Eman 
cipation,  therefore,  came  to  the  colonies  without  indemnity. 
This  suffices  to  exonerate  emancipation  from  all  the  calami 
ties  of  the  first  moments  ;  labor  was  disorganized,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  absence  of  servitude,  but  on  account  of 
the  absence  of  wages  ;  not  only  because  the  hands  of  the 
former  slave  were  free,  but  because  the  hands  of  the  former 
master  were  empty. 

*  Opinion  of  M  Froidefonds,  p.  31. 

t  Opinion  of  M.  Pf'coul,  p.  24.     .  J  Report,  p.  279. 


146  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

The  indemnity  was  accorded,  but  more  than  a  year  after 
wards,  by  the  statute  of  April  30,  1849. 

If  the  indemnity  was  not  prompt,  wflfe  it  at  least  large  ? 
By  no  means.  . 

The  commission  of  1840  *  had  calculated  the  indemnity 
according  to  the  market  value  of  the  negroes,  and  this 
value  according  to  the  average  rate  of  sale  in  each  colony 
during  a  period  of  ten  years,  chosen  during  prosperity,  in 
an  epoch  when  emancipation  was  not  talked  of  (1825-1834). 
This  labor  gave  as  its  result :  — 

At  Guadaloupe,  an  average  of  1,102  francs  43  centimes 
per  head  for  slaves  of  all  sexes  and  ages  ; 

At  Martinico,  1,200  francs  ; 

At  Guiana,  1,361  francs  99  centimes  ; 

At  Bourbon,  1,600  francs. 

The  Commission  fixed  on  the  general  average  of  1,200 
francs, f  which,  multiplied  by  250,000,  the  number  of  slaves, 
produced  a  sum  total  of  300,000,000  francs,  to  be  distrib 
uted,  half,  or  150,000,000,  in  money,  and  half  in  a  guaranty 
of  labor  for  ten  years. 

Before  the  Provisional  Government,  M.  Cremieux  and  M. 
de  Lamartine  demanded  150,000,000  francs.  The  most  en 
lightened  among  the  colonists  asked  7,500,000  in  three  per 
cents. J  But  the  government  proposed  only  90,000,000.  It 
was  calculated  that,  the  wages  of  the  freedmen  being  75 
centimes,  and  representing  double  the  amount  that  the  slave 
would  cost,  the  half  of  75,  or  37£  centimes,  was  the  differ 
ence  between  the  price  of  free  and  of  servile  labor  ;  —  this 
figure,  37 £  centimes,  was  multiplied  by  the  number  of  able- 
bodied  slaves,  computed  at  198,000  ;  and  this  figure,  multi 
plied  in  turn  by  the  number  of  working  days,  250,  for  five 
years,  produced  a  total  of  91,575,000  francs,  or,  in  round 

*  Report,  p.  275. 

|  In  England,  1,400  francs;  but  this  did  not  include  children  under  six  years 
of  age,  who  were  declared  free  without  indemnity. 

f  Opinion  of  M.  Reiset,  Commission  of  1848.    Proces-verbaux,  p.  71. 


INDEMNITY.  147 

numbers,  90,000,000.  The  Commission,  taking  1,085  francs 
as  the  average  value,  and  reducing  the  number  of  slaves  20 
per  cent,  arrived  at  214,000,000  ;  but,  considering  that  a 
relative  indemnity  only  was  in  question,  it  reduced  the  pro 
posed  sum  to  120,000,000.  This  it  proposed  to  divide  into 
80,000,000  capital,  and  2,000,000  a  year,  payable  in  ten 
years.*  The  government  obstinately  refused  to  add  any 
new  indebtedness  to  the  finances.  This  mode  prevailed, 
notwithstanding,  and  by  the  terms  of  the  law  passed  April 
30,  1849, •(•  the  indemnity  was  fixed  as  follows  :  — 

1.  6,000,000  francs  in  five  per  cent  government  stocks. 

2.  A  sum  of  6,000,000  francs  payable  in  cash  thirty  days 
after  the  decree. 

The  apportionment  among  the  colonies  was  based  on  the 
figure  of  the  slave  population,  viz.  :  J  — 

Number  of  Slaves.  Indemnity. 

fr.  c. 

Martinico            ....  74,447  1,507,885  80 

Guadaloupe    ....  87,087  1,947,164  85 

Guiana 12,525  372,571   88 

Bourbon          ....  60,651  2,055,200  25 

(  9,800  slaves  > 

SeneSal  1     550  bound  laborers  I  10'380  105>503  41 

Nossi-be,  St.  Mary              .         .  3,500  11,673  81 

248,560  6,000,000  00 

The  very  incomplete  statute  of  1849  did  not  determine, 
as  had  been  done  by  the  statutes  on  the  indemnity  of  the 
emigrants  and  colonists  of  St.  Domingo,  whether  the  in 
demnity  should  be  considered  as  real  estate  or  personal  prop 
erty,  and  reserved  to  mortgage  creditors,  or  distributed  be 
tween  the  latter  and  the  ordinary  creditors  ;  a  vexatious 
omission,  which  occasioned  innumerable  suits,  and  caused 
a  great  part  of  the  indemnity  to  pass,  not  into  the  hands 
of  the  newly  hired  laborers,  the  true  end  to  be  attained, 

*  20  per  cent  was  deducted  for  children  and  old  people. 
t  Report  of  M  Cre"mieux,  Sept.  30,  1848. 
t  Report  of  M.  Crdmieux,  Jan.  15,  1849. 


148  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

but  to  the  seaports  of  the  mother  country,  where  the  col 
onists  owed  an  enormous  commercial  debt.  The  same 
statute  omitted  to  regulate  the  sub-apportionment  in  each 
colony,  the  mode  of  payment,  and  the  proofs  to  be  ex 
acted,  and  a  new  statute  was  necessary,  November  15, 
1849,  followed  by  a  decree  on  the  24th  of  the  same  month, 
to  fix  all  these  important  points.* 

A  special  commission  instituted  in  each  colony  pro 
nounced  on  claims,  without  excluding  recourse  to  the  Privy 
Council,  arid  the  certificates  delivered  were,  except  in  case 
of  attachments,  transformed,  through  the  agency  estab 
lished  by  the  colonial  ministry,  into  government  stocks. 
The  work  proceeded  very  regularly,  and  is  now  terminated, 
save  as  to  a  few  indemnities  in  litigation.  The  government 
bonds  date  from  1852.  We  cannot  help  remembering  that 
by  the  conditions  of  the  report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  the  pay 
ment  of  the  indemnity  was  to  commence  in  1843  and  to  be 
ended  in  1853,  at  which  date  slavery  was  to  cease.  The 
opposition  of  the  colonies  has  resulted,  therefore,  only  in 
causing  them  to  receive  a  speedier  emancipation,  and  a 
longer  deferred,  but  above  all  smaller  indemnity. 

The  colonists,  in  short,  received  only  about  500  francs  per 
slave.  This  indemnity  was  really  insufficient.  The  calcu 
lation  made  by  the  government  would  have  been  a  better 
basis,  if  it  had  been  possible  exactly  to  estimate  the  differ 
ence  in  price  between  free  labor  and  slave  labor.  But  what 
did  slave  labor  cost  ?  What  would  free  labor  cost  ?  Noth 
ing  was  known  about  it ;  the  formula  was  ingenious,  the  ele 
ments  of  the  calculation  were  purely  hypothetical. 

The  Commission  of  1840  estimated  the  market  value  at 
1,200  francs,  that  of  1848  at  1,085  francs.  The  first,  by  a 
subtlety  difficult  to  understand  or  explain,  made  a  reduc 
tion  of  one  half,  giving  half  in  money  and  half  in  labor  ;  —  a 

*  Report  of  M.  Bdhic  to  the  Council  of  State;  Report  of  M.  Fourtanier  to 
the  Legislative  Assembly,  Nov.  10,  1849.  ^ 


INDEMNITY.  149 

strange  and  contradictory  system  ;  for  the  Commission  de 
clared  that  the  indemnity  was  not  a  true  repurchase,  yet 
notwithstanding  attributed  to  the  state,  for  each  fraction 
paid,  a  right  over  the  person  and  labor  of  the  slave  ;  the 
state  denied  the  right  of  property,  became  co-proprietor, 
and  forced  payment  for  its  right. 

The  second  Commission,  the  procedure  of  which  is  still 
less  comprehensible,  changed  the  market  value  after  having 
established  it,  and,  by  a  purely  arbitrary  reduction,  instead 
of  1,085  francs,  estimated  it  at  500  francs.  It  would  have 
been  better  to  be  logical,  and,  since  it  was  proved  that  the 
former  slaves,  still  more  than  their  masters,  had  need  that  a 
large  indemnity  should  be  paid,  —  since  there  was  an  oppor 
tunity,  at  the  same  time,  to  revive  the  colonies,  so  crushed 
by  the  rivalry  of  indigenous  sugar,  — not  to  haggle  about 
this  indemnity.  We  spend  500,000,000  for  a  war  that 
slays  50,000  men,  we  dared  not  spend  2,000,000  or  3,000,000 
to  free  250,000  men,  and  to  save  the  colonies  at  once  from 
shame  and  ruin.  • 

Did  this  meagre  indemnity  serve,  at  least  in  great  part,  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  free  labor  ? 

By  the  terms  of  Article  1  of  the  statute  of  April  SO,  1849, 
one  eighth  was  deducted  from  the  indemnity  of  all  the  colo 
nists  of  Guadaloupe,  Martinico,  and  Bourbon,  except  those 
who  had  received  less  than  1,000  francs,  to  serve  for  the 
establishment  of  loan  and  discount  offices. 

This  deduction  was  truly  in  conformity  to  the  spirit  of  the 
law,  which  considered  the  indemnity  as  a  subsidy  to  labor. 
Some  even  proposed  to  leave  it  as  a  common  loan  fund  for 
the  colonists,  without  apportioning  it  among  them.* 

But  what  became  of  the  rest  of  the  indemnity  ?  The 
major  part  passed  into  the  hands  of  creditors  of  all  kinds, 
and  not  into  those  of  the  laborers. 

We    may  say,  therefore,   that    the    indemnity    was    not 

*  Proccs-verbmuc  of  the  Commission  of  1848. 


150  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

prompt  enough,  not  large  enough,  and  that  it  failed  in  its 
end.  Doubtless  it  served  to  liquidate  propert}^  and  conse 
quently  to  revive  credit ;  but  it  assuaged  the  past,  it  did 
not  pave  the  way  for  the  future. 

Prompter,  it  would  have  averted  in  part  the  crisis  of 
labor  ;  larger,  it  would  have  permitted  a  less  distressing 
liquidation  ;  reserved  to  the  mortgage  creditors  alone,  it 
would  have  directly  fed  agriculture. 

In  this  point,  as  in  many  others,  we  come  again  to  the 
same  conclusion  :  — 

If  emancipation  has  been  followed  by  some  evils,  let  not 
the  blame  be  cast  on  it,  but  on  the  unskilfulness,  the  slow 
ness,  or  the  insufficiency  of  the  measures  which  might  have 
averted  these  evils. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  colonies  have  been  unable  to 
reanimate  labor,  despite  indemnity  ;  for  the  indemnity  has 
served  creditors  more  than  laborers,  debts  more  than  wages. 


This  is  the  proper  place  to  devote  a  few  words  to  the  in 
fluence  of  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  upon  the  budget 
of  the  state. 

The  emancipation  of  the  slaves  had  one  grave  objection 
in  the  eyes  of  the  financiers  of  the  ancient  Chambers,  — 
it  would  cost  dear.  The  Due  de  Broglie  had,  so  to  say, 
made  the  estimate. 

Indemnity  to  the  proprietors  for  249,508  slaves,  at 

1,200  fr.  each,* 300,000,000  fr. 

First  expenses,! 8,000,000 

*  Report,  p.  276. 

t  Ibid.  p.  129.     Armed  force 3,326,000  fr. 

Tribunals Memorial 

Prisons 1,620,000 

Educational  institutions          .         .        .  1,740,000 

Charitable,  etc.          .        .        ...        .  678,000 

Religious  worship  .         .         .         .         .    *  Memorial 

7,364,000 


INDEMNITY.  151 

Annual  expense  *      -.        .        . •    .  •  .i .    .    .     .    .         2,718,500 

They  recoiled  before  so  costly  a  good  deed. 

Now  the  indemnity  has  cost  the  treasury  but  126,000,000, 
and  a  part  of  this  has  served  to  form  the  capital  of  the 
colonial  banks. 

There  have  been  no  first  expenses.  The  annual  expenses, 
far  from  increasing,  have  diminished. 

If  we  compare,  in  fact,  the  accounts  of  1846  and  1847 
with  those  of  1848  and  1849,  we  establish  the  following 
figures. 

General  service  and  common  expenses  of  the  colonies  of 
Guadaloupe,  Martinico,  Bourbon,  and  Guiana  :  — 

1846 5,097,429  fr. 

1847 6,167,309 

1848 5,679,578 

1849 5,289,466 

As  to  the  local  service,  the  difference  is  still  more  sen 
sible  :  — 

1847 6, 167,309  fr. 

1848 5,679,568  f 

If  we  compare,  article  by  article,  the  accounts  of  1846 
with  those  of  1850,  we  shall  see  that  there  are  a  few  more 
police  agents  iii  the  towns  after  than  before  emancipation, 
and,  strangely  enough,  a  few  less  in  the  country  ;  that  the 
expenses  of  the  courts  have  increased,  but  that  the  ex 
penses  of  jail-fees  and  flight  have  diminished  ;  that  religious 
worship  costs  somewhat  more  ;  that  subsidies  to  parishes 

*  Ibid.  p.  130.    Armed  force 1,829,000  fr. 

Tribunals 269,500 

Prisons 34,000 

Education    ' 488,000 

Charity       .         .         .                  .         .         .  80,000 

Religious  worship   .....  18,000 

2,718,500  fr. 
f  Accounts  of  1848,  p.  59. 


152 


THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 


and  hospitals  have  somewhat  increased  ;  that  the  expenses 
for  the  recovery  of  taxes  are  still  the  same,  and  that,  in 
fine,  the  total  expense  has  diminished. 

It  is  difficult  to  establish  comparisons  with  the  accounts 
of  subsequent  years,  as,  since  the  Senatus  Consultum  of 
May  3,  1854,  the  decree  of  July  31,  1855,  and  that  of 
September  29,  1855,  the  financial  system  of  the  colonies 
has  been  modified.  The  new  legislation  abandons  to  the 
colonies  all  the  imposts  which  may  be  collected  by  them, 
and  leaves  them  the  full  disposal  of  their  revenues,*  but 
also  the  burden  of  expenses  in  which  the  state  has  not  a 
direct  interest. 

Notwithstanding  the  state  continues  to  pay  for  the  army,- 
the  government,  the  courts,  and  religious  worship,  it  con 
tributes  only  by  a  subsidy  to  public  instruction. f 

Now,  adding  together  the  services  retained  in  the  state 
budget, J  we  find  that  these  civil  and  military  services  of 
the  four  colonies  cost,  in  1846,  10,289,136  francs,  and,  in 
1858,  but  9,521,244  francs. 

In   short,   apart   from   the   indemnity,   emancipation  has 

*  The  accountability  has  been  at  the  same  time  decentralized.    (See  the 
instructions  of  April  15,  1856.) 


t  Religious  worship 
Courts  of  justice 

• 

1846. 
.     358,08! 
982,601 
.     505,161 

1848. 
2             687,973 
J             938,976 
)            200,000 

Guiana.            Bourbon. 
672,691         1,023,067 
81,734            382,726 
586,201         1,291,578 

J  1846. 
Military  service,  Personnel  . 
"              "        Material 
Civil  service 
Total       . 
1858. 
Civil  and  military  service     . 
Material    .... 
Total  .... 

General  total,  1846 
"        "      1858 
Less  difference 

Martinieo. 
1,650,235 
545,077 
1.512,853 

Guadaloupe. 
1,576,271 
464,098 
1,602,705 

3,708,165 

2,212,836 
499,365 

3,643,074 

2,413,597 
655,813 

1,240,626 

1,512,233 
307,462 

2,697,371 

1,548,008 
371,930 
1,919,933 

2,712,201 

3,069,410 

1,819,695 

10,289,136 
9,521,244 

767,892 

INDEMNITY.  153 

passed  over  the  budget  of  the  state*  without  leaving  a 
trace  on  it. 

*  As  to  the  colonial  budgets,  mark  the  result,  in  the  three  principal  ones,' 
of  the  decree  of  1855,  as  regarded  the  budget  of  1856.* 

Martinico  had 2,038.600  fr. 

It  had  to  pay 2,078,803 

It  lost .  40,203  fr. 

Guadaloupe  had 1,723,300  fr. 

It  had  to  pay.         .......         1,865,928 

It  lost 142,628  fr. 

Bourbon  had 2,240,900  fr. 

It  had  to  pay 1,959,020 

It  gained 281,880  fr. 

The  state  lost 99,049  fr. 

*  This  information  is  due  to  the  able  chief  of  accounts  in  the  collection  of  the  coloni-js, 
M.  Eguyer. 


CHAPTER    X. 

PRODUCTION  AND    COMMERCE.  — WAGES  AND  PROPERTY. 

THE  colonies  have  been  ruined  by  emancipation. 

It  seems  as  if  we  had  only  to  pass  sentence  on  this  point, 
on  which  the  declared  partisans  of  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  its  enemies  are  agreed. 

"  Public  tranquillity  in  the  colonies  leaves  nothing  to  be 
desired/'  wrote  the  reporter  of  the  sugar  law,  M.  Beugnot, 
in  1851,  "  but  the  conditions  of  production  are  completely 
changed."*  The  reporter  of  the  sugar  law  in  1860,  M. 
Ancel,  likewise  affirms,  ten  years  after,  "the  profound  trou 
ble  which  the  suppression  of  slave  labor,  violently  pro 
claimed,  had  brought  to  add  to  an  already  calamitous  situ 
ation,  "f 

Are  we  to  rely  on  these  affirmations,  passed  in  some  sort 
into  commonplaces,  and  be  content  with  repeating  by  way 
of  consolation,  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  losses 
experienced  by  men  enriched  by  slavery,  freedom  is  a  bless 
ing  worthy  such  a  price,  a  reparation  deserving  such  a 
penance  ? 

No.  It  becomes  us  to  penetrate  into  details,  and  to  as 
certain  scrupulously  the  exact  extent  and  different  causes 
of  the  loss  of  which  the  colonies  complain.  Most  real  and 
most  serious,  nevertheless  it  has  been  neither  so  grave, 
nor  so  absolute,  nor  so  long,  as  is  commonly  asserted. 
Above  all,  it  has  other  causes,  of  longer  standing,  and 
more  profound  than  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

But  how  assure  ourselves  of  this  ? 

*  P.  63.  f  P.  17. 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,  PROPERTY.  155 

When  I  read  the  colonial  journals,  when  I  consult  the 
writings  of  the  colonists,  when  I  consult  the  memorials, 
petitions,  and  bills,  I  hear  nothing  but  complaints  and 
mourning.  Besides,  I  lose  myself  in  infinite  details,  in 
contestable  calculations,  in  contradictory  opinions.  To 
what  end  can  this  difficult  path  conduct  me  ?  To  a  picture 
of  the  existing  situation  of  the  colonies,  —  their  agricul 
tural,  financial,  and  commercial  situation.  This  picture  will 
never  be  either  complete  or  like  ;  we  may  make  a  resem 
blance  in  the  portrait  of  a  man,  never  in  that  of  a  whole 
community.  But,  moreover,  such  a  picture  would  not  be 
important  to  the  special  end  which  I  propose,  which  is  ex 
clusively  to  demonstrate  that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
has  not  ruined  the  colonies.  Now,  for  this,  it  suffices  to 
prove,  first,  that  they  are  not  ruined  ;  in  the  second  place, 
that  the  evils  from  which  they  suffer  are  from  other  causes 
than  emancipation. 

To  what  documents  can  we  definitely  refer  ? 

Propounding  the  same  questions  in  regard  to  the  English 
colonies,  M.  de  Broglie*  said  well  :  — 

"  In  an  event  of  this  immensity,  what  is  true  in  this  place 
is  not  in  that ;  what  is  true  at  one  time  is  no  longer  so 
in  another  ;  there  is  room  for  facts  of  all  sorts,  all  opinions 
may  draw  thousands  of  examples  from  it  in  their  favor,  ac 
cording  to  the  bias  of  the  thoughts  of  the  observer  ;  what 
strikes  this  one,  that  one  fails  to  see,  and  vice  versa.  All 

design  to  be  impartial,  each  one  is  prejudiced  at  heart 

There  is  a  shorter  and  surer  means,  —  to  place  one's  self  on 
an  entirely  neutral  ground,  where  the  basis  of  calculation 
shall  be  as  it  were  disinterested,  the  figures  having  been 
neither  prepared  nor  grouped  in  any  determined  end. 

"  In  England,  as  in  France,  the  mother  country  is  the 
chief  market  of  the  colonies  ;  it  is  to  this  market  that  al 
most  all  of  the  products  of  colonial  labor  drift  ;  it  is  to  this 

*  P.  19. 


156  THE  FEENCH  COLONIES.  * 

market  that  the  colonists  go  to  provide  themselves  with  all 
the  articles  of  their  consumption.  Before  coming  in  or 
going  out,  the  commodities  pass  through  the  custom-house, 
and  are  inscribed  on  its  registers  day  by  day  with  a  view  to 
true  fiscal  accountability.  The  figures  extracted  from  these 
statements  are  witnesses  indifferent  to  any  consequences 
that  may  be  drawn  from  them,  and  on  which  no  one  can 
read  a  lecture  before  interrogating  them." 

We  will  follow  this  method,  and  summon  these  witnesses. 

This  interrogation  is  long,  dry,  and  inevitably  confused. 
For  these  witnesses  scarcely  agree  between  themselves.  The 
figures  of  the  tables  of  the  customs,  those  of  the  tables  of  the 
population,  culture,  commerce,  and  navigation  of  the  colonies, 
those  of  the  quarterly  statements  and  comparative  resumes,  and 
those  of  the  statistics  of  France,  or  other  special  works,  are 
not  precisely  the  same.  From  this  results  a  veritable  embar 
rassment,  which  it  does  not  depend  on  us  to  surmount,  and 
which  can  be  diminished  at  least  by  drawing  always  from 
the  same  source.  This  will  be  by  preference  the  series  of 
documents  contained  in  the  collection  of  the  Revue  coloniale. 

We  will  begin  with  a  bird's-eye  view,  and  descend  after 
wards  to  details.  We  will  first  compare  the  total  fluctuation 
of  imports  arid  exports  united,  before  and  after  1848,  in  each 
colony,  then  the  exports  taken  separately. 

After  values,  we  will  examine  quantities,  especially  the 
quantities  of  sugar  made  or  exported  by  each  colony.  Here 
in  lies  the  true  thermometer  of  the  progress  or  decline  of 
production. 

We  will  close  by  some  statistics  concerning  wages,  the 
price  of  lands,  and  net  costs. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  what  has  been  the  general  range  of 
colonial  fluctuation  before  and  since  1848  ? 

If  we  confine  ourselves  to  comparing  the  aggregate  of  the 
imports  and  exports  of  the  colonies  in  184Y  with  the  aggre 
gate  in  1848,  the  digression  appears  enormous. 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  JVAGES.  PROPERTY.  i57 

1847.  1848. 

Martinico       .         .         .       41,165,012  fr.       23,366,287  fr. 
Guadaloupe         .        .  41,759,713  20,854,020 

Guiana  .         .        ..        .        4,501,747  3,396,720 

Bourbon    ,'.  '      .  '       .  28,267,698  19,676,882 

Total.         .         .     115,694,170  fr.        67,293,909  fr. 

67,293,909 

Diminution  .         .       48,400,261  fr. 

This  is  a  diminution  of  nearly  one  half,  or  41  per  cent ; 
still  more,  if  we  calculate  only  the  production  of  sugar,  fall 
en  from  an  average  of  80,000,000  to  90,000,000  kilogrammes* 
(1838  -  184T)  to  63,000,000  in  1848,  57,000,000  in  1849,  arid 
40,000,000  in  1850,  or  50  per  cent. 

But  several  things  must  be  remarked  :  — 
1.  The  year  1841  was  an  exceptional  one,  exceeding  the 
preceding  year  by  more  than  5,000,000  francs.     Compared 
with  1856,  the  fall  of  the  aggregate  of  1848  stands  :  - 

Martinico 37,789",353  fr. 

Guadaloupe     ..'....  34,627,632 

Guiana 4,619,861 

Bourbon 33,472,393 

Total 110,509,239  fr. 

1848  .         .          67,293,809 


43,215,430  fr. 
or  only  40  per  cent. 

2.  Was  it  emancipation,  or  the  Revolution,  that  caused 
this  considerable  loss  ? 

In  fact,  we  have  seen  that  it  was  not  freedom  that  dis 
turbed  order,  which  it  was  the  sole  means  of  restoring  ;  it 
was  the  ballot-box  that  caused  labor  to  be  deserted,  armed 
parties,  and  stained  the  soil  with  blood. 

Besides,  the  result  produced  in  the  colonies  was  produced 
at  the  same  moment,  by  the  same  cause,  in  the  mother 
country.  While  the  production  of  colonial  sugar  fell  from 
80,000,000  to  40,00*0,000  kilog.,  the  production  of  a  similar 

*  Kilogramme  =  2.2055  Ibs.  avoirdupois,  or  nearly  2|  Ibs. 


158  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

commodity,  beet-root  sugar,  fell  from  60,000,000  kilog.  in 
1847  to  56,000,000  in  1848,  and  to  44,000,000  in  1849  ;  27 
per  cent,  or  nearly  one  third. 

The  total  loss  of  the  external  commerce  of  France  at  the 
same  epoch  is  estimated  at  no  less  than  600,000,000  fr.,  or 
one  fourth.* 

In  Paris  alone,  it  was  computed  that  the  Revolution  of 
February  caused  a  decline  of  from  53  to  75,  and  even  83 
per  cent,  according  to  the  occupation,  amount  of  business, 
and  quantity  of  labor,  f 

Lastly,  in  studying  closely  the  tables  of  customs,  we  see 
that  the  imports  into  the  colonies  from  foreign  countries  had 
diminished  less,  in  1848  and  1849,  than  the  imports  from 
France,  if  they  had  not  even  increased.  At  Guadaloupe, 
there  was  increase  ;  at  Guiana,  a  diminution  of  18  per 
cent  only,  while  the  entrance  duties  from  France  fell  25 
per  cent  ;  at  Bourbon,  12  per  cent  only,  against  33  per 
cent.J  Thus  the  crisis  of  the  mother  country  weighed, 
before  all,  on  the  colonies  ;  in  the  earliest  days  of  eman 
cipation,  they  ceased  less  to  buy  than  the  mother  country 
to  sell. 

*  GENERAL,    COMMERCE. 

1847 2,613,600,000  fr. 

1848 2,014,900,000 

SPECIAL,  COMMERCE. 

1847 1,867,000,000  fr. 

1848 1,390,600,000 

(Decennial  table  published  by  the  Administration  of  Customs  in  1848.) 
But  these  figures,  rising  again  from  1850,  exceed,  dating  from  1852,  all  that 
precede   them;    and    this    magnificent   commerce,   carried   from   1,300,000   to 
2,000,000,000  from  1827  to  1847,  reached  5,000,000,000  in  1857,  having  thus  in 
creased  nearly  60  per  cent  in  thirty  years. 

t  Statistique  de  V Industrie parisienne,  published  in  1851,  pp.  41,  42. 
The  sum  of  exports  from  the  custom-house  at  Paris,  which 

was,  in  1847  .        . 168,572,187  fr. 

had  fallen  in  1848  to  .......         149,288,979 

Or  about  one  eighth     .        .        .  *     .        .         .       19,283,208  fr. 
t  Comparative  abstracts  inserted  in  the  Revue  colonials,  1851,  pp.  20,  100, 
153,161. 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,   PROPERTY.  159 

« 

3.  If  the  quantities  produced  have  decreased,  the  prices 
have  risen  so  as  to  diminish  the  loss  of  the  colonists.     In 
the  decennial  period  183Y-184T,  the  average  price  of  colo 
nial    sugar   at  the    entrepot  of  Havana  was   68  fr.    50  c., 
duties  not  included  ;  the  price  had  risen  in  1850  to  87  fr. 
50  c.  ;  or  19  francs  increase,  that  is,  22  per  cent.*     If  the 
loss  of  the  colonists  was,  therefore,  in  these  first  years,  40 
per  cent  in  quantity,  it  was  really  but  18  per  cent  in  value, 
or  less  than  one  fifth,  while,  in  respect  to  the  English  colo 
nies,  it  reached  one  fourth. 

4.  It   is   true    that   the  loss  did  not  stop,   as  regarded 
colonial   sugar,   at   1850  ;    whilst,   as    regarded   indigenous 
sugar,  the  rise  of  prices  raised  the  production,  this  year, 
to  64,000,000  kilogrammes,  and  also  permitted. the  introduc 
tion  of  large  lots  of  foreign  sugar,  despite  the  extra  charge 
of  22  francs,  f     The  presence   and   progress  of  these    two 
rivals  weighed  upon  the  production  of  the  colonies  in  pro 
portion   as    the    consequences    of   the    Revolution   became 
effaced.     An  insignificant  reduction  was  accorded  only  in 
1852.     The  political  crisis  finished,  the  commercial  crisis, 
born  indeed    before   1848,   commenced   anew.     Let  us  not 
forget  this,  and  confound  these  two  crises  with  the  crisis 
of  freedom. 

Be  it  as  it  may,  let  us  also  remark  that  1848,  1849,  and 
1850  were  not  only  years  in  which  politics  overthrew  labor, 
but,  furthermore,  that  the  meagre  harvests  of  this  year  were 
still  in  part  the  product  of  servile  labor  ;  it  is  in  1851  and 
1852  only  that  we  can  ^udge  of  the  results  due  to  free 
labor.  Now,  from  1852,  before  the 'reduction,  the  amount 
of  the  aggregate  of  commerce  (imports  and  exports)  at 

*  Report  of  M.  Beugnot,  1851,  p.  55.  Document  fourni  au  Conseil  general  de 
I' agriculture,  1850,  Annexe,  No.  8. 

Price  current  at  Havre,  1839     .         .         .     115  to  120  fr.  pe0100  kiloe. 

1849          .         .         130    "    135         "          '• 
t  1849     .        .         .     •    .         .         .  •".    .     27,941,622  kilog. 
1850          .         .         .         .        .      .  .         43,723,405      " 


160  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

• 

Bourbon  exceeded  that  of  1847  ;  at  Martinico,  and  even 
at  Guiana,  that  of  1846  ;  Guadaloupe  alone  had  not  yet 
regained  its  footing.*  Here  are  the  comparative  results 
of  the  five  years  that  preceded  emancipation,  and  the  five 
years  that  followed  it :  — 

QUINQUENNIAL  AVERAGE. 

1843-1847.  1848-1852. 

Martinico          .         .         .     39,226,503  fr.  36,676,505  fr. 

Guadaloupe  .         .         39,226,912  28,461,649 

Guiana     ....       4,081,799  4,427,460 

Bourbon        .          .          .          33,074,648  34,708,672 


115,609,862  fr.       104,274,286  fr. 
Difference   .         .         .     11,335,576  fr. 

If  we  go  further,  if  we  compare  the  period  1843  -  184Y 
with  the  period  1853-  1857,  then  the  advantage  is  entirely 
on  the  side  of  freedom. 

QUINQUENNNIAL    AVERAGE  (1853-1857). 

Martinico 51,546,959  fr 

Guadaloupe 39,904,671 

Guiana         .  ....       7,954,376 

Bourbon  ....  .         .  72,324,705 

Total 171,730,711  fr. 

Average  (1843-1847)         .         .         115,609,862 

Increase 56,120,849  fr. 

Thus,  five  years  after  emancipation,  the  diminution  is  only 
11,000,000  fr.,  resting  almost  entirely  on  a  single  colony, 
Guadaloupe  ;  ten  years  after,  tbfe  increase  is  56,000,000  ; 
in  the  four  colonies,  the  figure  is  exceeded,  at  Martinico  by 
more  than  a  third,  at  Bourbon,  more  than  double.f 

II.  We  will  now  distinguish  the  imports  from  the  exports, 

*  See  Tablfe  A  and  B,  Appendix. 

f  We  also  join  (Table  C,  Appendix)  the  tables  of  the  French  custom-house, 
where  the  figures  are  still  more  significant.  At  Bourbon  they  rose  from 
23,711,051  fr.,  in  1848,  to  99,584,130  fr.,  in  1857.  (Revue  coloniale,  1858,  p.  898.) 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,  PROPERTY.  161 

instead  of  presenting  united  the  figures  which  express 
them. 

We  observe  that  nearly  all  the  increase  bears  upon  the 
imports,  while  the  figure  of  the  exports  remains  almost  con 
stantly,  on  one  hand,  below  the  figures  anterior  to  emanci 
pation,  on  the  other,  below  the  figure  of  the  imports  ;  in 
other  words,  the  colonies  produce  less  than  they  formerly 
produced,  and  receive  more  than  they  produce,  —  a  double 
loss. 

It  is  just,  moreover,  to  distinguish  some  colonies  from 
others,  for  the-variation  does  not  follow  the  same  course  in 
all.  Now  the  general  table  of  customs  (pp.  58  -  60)  proves 
that  the  decennial  average  1837-1846  of  exports  is  above 
the  decennial  average  1847  -  1856,  viz.  :  — • 

1837-1846.  1847-1856. 

Martinico           .         .         .     15,158,394  fr.  14,027,763  fr. 

Guadaloupe           .         .         18.575,225  12,685,654 

Guiana     ....       1,830,006  861,370 

It  is  only  at  Bourbon  that  the  average  rises  from 
18,712,281  francs  to  21,577,330  francs. 

The  answer  to  these  objections  is  this  :  — 

There  is  one  country  in  which  the  total  commercial  move 
ment  has  increased,  but  in  which  the  amount  of  exports  has 
so  far  diminished  that  it  may  be  said  to  cease  to  figure 
among  the  colonies  which  provision  the  mother  country  ; 
namely,  Guiana.  Is  this  to  say  that  it  is  destroyed  ?  No  ; 
it  has  changed  character.  Already  very  unproductive,  aban 
doning  or  resuming  the  culture  of  the  cane,  according  to  the 
rise  or  fall  of  the  price  of  sugar,  and  producing  more  anotta 
than  sugar,  it  has  become  a  penal  colony,  consuming,  with 
the  exception  of  its  woods,  nearly  all  that  it  produces,  es 
pecially  cattle,  the  export  of  which,  moreover,  has  been 
several  times  forbidden  ;  but,  after  all,  employing  nearly  as 
many  laborers  and  transacting  as  much  business  as  before 
the  day  when,  by  reason  of  the  statute  of  May  30,  1854,  it 


162 


THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 


received   4,000  convicts,  then  5,000  (1858),  6,000  (1859), 
and  1,000  (I860).* 

As  to  Bourbon,  it  is  not  denied  that  all  the  figures  ante 
rior  not  only  to  1836-1847,  but  also  to  1826-1837,  are 
largely  exceeded. 

As  to  Martiriico  and  Guadaloupe,  it  is  forgotten  that  the 
decay  was  anterior  to  1848,  for  the  decennial  average  of 
exports  1836-1847  was  already  below  the  average  1826- 
1837,  viz.  :- 

Martinico      1826-1837      ....     16,015,171  fr. 

1836-1847  .          .         .          15,158,394 

Guadaloupe  1826  -  1837      ....     20,451,685 

1836-1847.         .         .         .          18,575,225 

It  is  not  just,  besides,  to  take  as  a  whole  the  average 
1847  - 1856,  which  comprises  the  disastrous  years  1848, 
1849,  1850,  and  1851.  What  should  be  done  is  to  ascertain, 
by  the  figures  of  the  last  years  of  this  period,  at  what  epoch 
the  years  that  preceded  emancipation  and  those  that  fol 
lowed  it  were  again  on  a  level.  Now  thislevel  was  attained 
at  Bourbon  after  five  years,  then  doubled  after  eight  years, 
and  tripled  after  ten  years  ;  at  Martinico,  attained  after  seven 
years,  then  exceeded  by  one  third  after  nine  years  ;  at  Gua 
daloupe,  attained  after  ten  years,  though  since  diminished. 

ExPORTS.f 

1847.  1848.  1849.  1850.  1851. 

Bourbon        12,620,602    9,107,507    13,939,032    28,881,893    38,423,669 

1847.  1848.  1854.  1857. 

Martinico      18,323,921     9,212,554     18,636.070    24,830,093 

1847.  1848.  1857. 

Guadaloupe  20,420,522    8,873,539    23,319,277 


Imports  . 


1847. 

2,878,628 
1,622,919 


1857. 

6,420,789 
961,272 


4,501,547  7,382,061  "• 

t  All  the  figures  given  by  the  Table  of  Customs  are  much  higher.    (Appen 
dix,  Table  C.) 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,   PROPERTY.  163 

Thus,  therefore,  it  is  not  true  that  the  figure  of  exports 
has  remained  inferior,  since  emancipation,  to  what  it  was 
before. 

But  it  is  remarked,  with  reason,  that  it  remains  constantly 
inferior  to  that  of  imports.  It  is  thence  concluded  that,  the 
balance  being  to  the  detriment  of  the  colonies,  they  are  on 
the  way  to  ruin. 

There  are  two  answers  to  make  ;  the  one  general,  the 
other  special. 

1.  "The  balance  of  trade  is,  for  small  countries  as  for  large 
ones,  only  a  document  for  consultation.  Its  data  are  too 
incomplete,  the  values  which  it  establishes  have  too  much 
uncertainty,  to  permit  them  to  be  brought  in  proof  of  the 
poverty  or  wealth  of  communities."  * 

These  observations  of  an  experienced  colonist  are  per 
fectly  just,  and  it  is  long  since  science  has  relied  on  the 
theory,  once  so  popular,  of  the  balance  of  trade.  It  is  useful 
information,  it  is  not  an  infallible  argument.  It  founds  af 
firmations  in  fact  upon  variable  values,  it  says  nothing  of 
the  origin,  nature,  or  end  of  expenses  and  receipts  ;  it  takes 
account  of  what  comes  in  and  what  goes  out,  not  of  what 
is  consumed  on  the  spot,  not  of  what  is  a  source  of  power 
without  appearing  in  figures.  A  country  which  exports 
largely  seems  very  wealthy.  It  is  not  so  ;  it  turns  eve^- 
thing  into  money  in  order  to  pay  debts.  We  have  a  very 
tangible  proof  of  this  assertion  in  the  examination  of  the 
total  commerce  of  France  after  1848. 

While  the  imports  fell  to  1,343,000,000  fr.  in  1847,  and  to 
862,000,000  in  1848,  and  did  not  rise  again  until  1852  above 
the  figure  of  1847,  the  exports  did  not  fall  until  1848,  and 
rose  again  from  1849,  without  stopping,  above  the  figure  of 
184T  ;  the  equilibrium  between  the  imports  and  exports  was 
not  attained  until  1856.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Was  France 
richer  in  I%£d  than  in  184T  ?  By  no  means  ;  she  bought  lit- 

*  La  Question  commerciale  a  la  Guadeloupe,  by  Count  de  Chazelles. 


164  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

tie  and  sold  all  she  could,  —  exhausted  all  her  supplies,  and 
did  not  replace  them. 

On  the  contrary,  a  country  that  imports  more  than  it 
exports  seems  poor ;  it  is  not  so  if  it  import  machinery, 
manures,  and  laborers  that  increase  its  capital,  or  if  it  have 
wealth  enough  to  consume  largely  ;  a  rich  man  brings 
more  into  his  house  than  he  sends  out  from  it.  Reasoning 
founded  on  the  balance  of  trade  must  therefore  be  fragile. 
More  just,  though  subject  to  numerous  exceptions,  is  the 
universally  accepted  formula,  Products  are  exchanged  only 
for  products.  If  a  man  buys,  it  is  because  he  can  pay  ;  if 
he  pays,  it  is  because  he  has  produced. 

2.  But  we  forget  before  all  the  special  position  of  the 
colonies. 

The  continual  excess  of  imports  over  exports  is  the  nor 
mal  condition  among  small  communities,  which  only  produce 
certain  special  commodities,  and  receive  all  the  rest  from 
abroad,  and  whence  fortunes,  once  made,  almost  always  emi 
grate.  This  is  so  true,  that  when,  in  1857,  the  exports  in 
Martinico  exceeded  the  imports,  it  was  necessary  to  go  back 
to  1828  to  encounter  the  same  phenomenon.* 

The  same  cause  is  the  principal  explanation  of  the  mone 
tary  crises,  so  frequent  and  so  distressing  in  the  colonies, 
and  of  which  there  has  been  especial  complaint  during  the 
past  few  years. 

Well-informed  writers  see  the  origin  of  the  last  monetary 
crisis,  some  in  the  establishment  of  banks,  very  useful  in 
reducing  the  rate  of  interest  and  making  loans  to  agricul 
ture,  but  which  they  accuse  of  having  replaced  specie  in 
local  circulation  by  paper,  which,  cannot  be  exported,  and 
which  comes  at  length  to  be  no  longer  redeemable  ;  others 
in  the  measures  taken  to  exclude  foreign  coin,  —  Spanish 
doubloons  and  piasters,  American  dollars  and  eagles. f  But 

• 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1858,  p.  682. 

f  See  the  writings  of  MM.  de  Chazelles,  Lepelletier  de  Saint-Remy,  de  Cri- 


PRODUCTION,  COMMERCE,  WAGES,  PROPERTY.  165 

the  real  cause  is  that  exchanges  in  kind,  rather  than  sales, 
are  made  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country  ; 
the  importation  exceeding  the  exportation,  the  colonists 
have  to  pay  a  balance  in  cash.  Not  producing  food  for  their 
population  in  sufficient  quantity,  they  pay  again  a  balance 
to  foreign  countries.  "  The  money  sent  from  France  to  the 
Antilles  in  payment  for  sugar,"  said  M.  Reiset  *  to  the 
Commission  of  1848,  "  goes  only  to  benefit  Porto  Rico  and 
America,  whence  our  colonists  obtain  cattle,  beasts  of  bur 
den,  wood  for  building,  etc.,  etc.,  without  being  able  to  pay 
in  sugar.'7  Add,  that  fortunes,  once  made  in  the  colonies, 
emigrate  with  their  possessors,  who  are  eager  to  go  to  enjoy 
them  in  France.  Remember,  too,  the  amount  of  debts  to 
the  seaports,  the  habit  of  speculating  on  'Change,  —  here  are 
many  causes,  in  addition  to  the  necessity  of  paying  cash  for 
wages,  to  explain  the  frequency  of  monetary  crises.  It  may 
be  said  that  they  are  almost  the  normal  condition  in  the 
excess  of  imports  over  exports. 

But  is  this  excess  a  proof  of  impoverishment?  Yes, 
if  debts  be  incurred.  How  are  we  to  ascertain  if  this  be 
the  case  ?  By  the  rate  of  interest.  Now,  it  is  well  known 
that  the  rate  of  interest  is  much  lower  to-day  than  before 
emancipation.  Once  more,  what  is  imported  is  paid  for, 
and  ^o  pay  it  is  necessary  to  have,  and  to  have  it  is  neces 
sary  to  produce  or  to  have  produced.  Is  not  the  capital  of 
the  colonies  in  other  hands  than  those  of  the  exporters  ? 
Are  not  the  imports  destined  in  part  for  others  than  they, 
and  the  exportable  articles  employed  in  part  for  something 
else  than  exportation  ? 

This  is  true,  in  fact. 

If  large  estates  have  suffered,   small  freeholds  have  in- 


senoy,  and  Basiege,  1859,  1860.  See  also  VAvenir  de  la  Gaudeloupe,  Nov.  29, 
1859,  and  the  articles  of  MM.  Courcelle  Seneuil  and  Jules  Duval  in  the  Journal 
des  Economistes. 

*  Proces-verbaux,  p.  18. 


166  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

creased.  If  the  labors  of  the  fields  have  been  deserted,  the 
arts  and  manufactures  of  the  towns  have  been  filled  up  ; 
the  class  which  made  large  profits  has  diminished,  the  class 
which  made  none  has  made  small  ones,  importation  has 
gone  on  faster  than  exportation,  because  consumption  has 
increased,  because  the  comfort  of  the  former  slaves  has  in 
creased. 

These  explanations  seem  to  me  to  demonstrate  sufficiently 
that  the  excess  of  imports  over  exports  is  not  a  proof  of 
poverty,  but  rather  a  proof  of  the  increase  of  local  consump 
tion,  and  consequently  of  comfort. 

But  although,  despite  well-founded  arguments,  I  admit 
this  excess,  in  default  of  sufficient  information,  from  induc 
tions  rather  than  certainty,  it  is  at  least  incontestable  :  — 

1.  That  this  balance  was  already  the  normal  condition  of 
the  colonies  before  emancipation  ; 

2.  That   the   value   of  exports  has   increased  since  this 
epoch  ;  that  it  amounted  to  less  than  53,000,000  francs  in 
184T,  and  that  it  exceeded  82,000,000  in  1857. 

III.  It  is  admitted,  beside,  that  "  the  exports  verified  by 
the  customs,  not  in  their  values  but  in  their  quantities,  are 
susceptible  of  no  dispute.'7* 

Let  us  leave  values,  therefore,  and  consult  quantities,  and 
since  it  is  claimed  that  the  loss  has  weighed  above  all  on 
the  principal  colonial  product,  sugar,  let  us  indicate  the 
quantities  of  sugar. 

The  comparative  tables  of  the  quantities  of  sugar  brought 
to  France  by  the  colonies  present  the  following  results  :  — 

Quinquennial  average,  1843  - 1847  f         .         80,570,800  kil. 
"  "          1848-1853      .         .     58,946,830 

A  diminution  of  more  than  one  fourth. 

*  Ibid.,  M.  de  Chazelles. 

t  Comprising  exceptional  years,  as  1845, 102,000,000  kil. ;  1847,  99,000,000  kil. ; 
while  none  of  the  years  from  1825  to  1844  had  reached  beyond  a  maximum  of 
89,000,000,  realized  only  twice  in  twenty  years. 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,   PROPERTY.  167 

But  1853  reaches  already         .         .         .       65,682,080  kil. 

1854  rises  to.         .         .        ...        ..          82.211,428 

1855  .         .         .         .         .         .;       .       90,747,276 

1856  .         .         .••-.-"      .      '  .  93,531,027 

1857  .         .         .        •.         .         .         .       84,961,781 

1858  ...         .         .         .          116,245,177 

1859 112,701,138* 

So  that  from  1854  the  average  amount  of  production  an 
terior  to  1848  is  exceeded,  even  in  sugar. 

It  is  true  that  the  progress  was  accomplished  more  or  less 
slowly  in  each  colony,  as  is  proved  both  by  the  Tables  of 
Commerce  published  by  the  Ministry  of  the  Marine  and 
Colonies,  and  the  Official  Table  of  Customs,  published  by 
the  Minister  of  Finance.  But,  after  ten  years,  the  very 
high  figures  of  184T  were  exceeded  in  the  Antilles  as  well 
as  in  Bourbon,  viz.  :  — 

SUGAR  MANUFACTURED.! 

Bourbon.  Martinico.  Guadaloupe.^ 

1847  24,063.689  kil.         1847  29,318,175  kil.         1847  38,00 7,80 7  kil. 
1857  64,649,170  1856  30,344,650  1854  38,180,200 

RAW  SUGAR  IMPORTED  INTO  FRANCE.  J 

Bourbon.                              Martinico.  Guadaloupe. 

1847  17,359,825  kil  19,247,079  kil.  24,225,756  kil. 

1848  15,279,875  11,838,865  12,191,904 

1849  12,978,406  11,'034,983  11,515,545 

1850  13,180,666                     8,545,310  7,808,5./4 

1851  13,491,119  11,829,555  10,148,075 

1852  19,807,142  14,717,577  10,645,556 

1853  19,000,326  12,419,440  8,884,377 

1854  25,036,845  14,624,649  13,254,673 

1855  34,224,912  11,117,530  12,690,933 

1856  32,946,224  15,981,976  13,003,032 

1857  51,006,067  23,679,905  18,390,842 

1858  57,522,342  27,334,585  28,675,144 

*  Revue  coloniale,  April  and  October,  1860. 

t  Revue  coloniale,  Dec.,  1860,  p.  943. 

t  Decennial  Table  of  Customs,  1846,  1847,  pp.  58-68.    Annual  Table,  1857, 

1868. 


168  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

What  matters  it,  say  the  planters,  that  our  lands  produce 
as  much,  if  their  market  value  be  lowered,  if  the  net  income 
be  lessened  by  the  increase  of  wages  and  the  diminution  of 
selling  prices. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  obtain  precise  documents  on  these 
p'oints. 

In  the  Antilles  transactions  are  not  numerous  enough 
to  make  a  well-established  price-current  concerning  land, 
which  varies  in  price  according  to  situation.  Before  1848, 
little  was  sold,  and  debts  were  incurred  without  fear  of  dis 
possession.  The  price  of  a  plantation  depended  more  on 
the  value  of  its  negroes  and  its  annual  yield,  than  on  that 
of  the  land  itself;  of  which  every  one  had  always  more  than 
he  cultivated.  The  negroes  not  being  able  to  hold  property, 
there  were  in  each  colony  70,000  or  80,000  less  buyers  or 
sellers.  How  compare  such  diverse  elements  ? 

Is  it  possible  to  take  as  certain  the  figures  enunciated  in 
the  f^vo  official  publications  of  the  Colonial  Ministry,  the 
two  Notices  printed  in  1840  and  1848,  and  relating,  the  first 
to  1835,  a  year  of  great  prosperity,  the  second  to  1855,  only 
seven  years  after  the  Revolution  and  emancipation  ?  In 
1835,  the  capital  involved  in  the  colonies  was  estimated  at 
796,403,641  francs  ;  but  deducting  the  value  of  the  slaves, 
estimated  at  274,304,150  francs,  or  about  1500  francs  per 
head,  there  remained  522,099,591  francs  for  the  capital  of 
lands,  plantations,  goods,  and  cattle. 

Now  the  Notice  of  1858  estimates  the  same  capital  in 
1855  at  374,173,405  francs.  This  would  be  a  difference  of 
147,926,186  francs,  or  about  one  fourth. 

This  difference  would  bear  entirely  on  Guadaloupe,  Gui 
ana,  and  Martinico,  for  at  Bourbon  the  capital  involved  is 
estimated  above  what  it  was  worth,  including  the  slaves, 
before  emancipation. 

But  is  it  possible  to  admit  the  figures  given  by  the  Notices 
officielles?  Do  they  not  refute  themselves  ?  For  they  inform 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,   WAGES,  PROPERTY.  169 

us  that  the  number  of  plantations  has  increased.  The 
number  of  head  of  cattle  is  sensibly  the  same.  The  number 
of  laborers  has  diminished  very  little,  whatever  may  be  as 
serted.*  The  interest  on  money,  it  is  not  denied,  has  fallen. 
The  banks  are  flourishing,  the  loans  on  the  crops  have 
brought  great  relief  to  property,  f  The  stock  of  implements 
has  been  improved,  and  consequently  the  capital  involved 
has  largely  increased.  The  establishment  of  central  mills 
has  increased  profits  by  lessening  expenses.  Lastly,  and 
above  all,  property  is  consolidated.  Always  suspicious  and 
of  fragile  tenure  while  the  abolition  of  slavery  weighed  on 
it  as  a  menace,  and  loaded  with  debts,  property  has  been 
liquidated  by  indemnity,  regulated  by  expropriation,  reha 
bilitated  by  emancipation.  Surer  and  more  honorable,  it 
must  offer  more  attraction  to  capital. 

If   we   consult   the   position   of   the   plantations   of   the 

1835.  —  Slaves.  Laborers.  -  1855. 

*  Martinico 56,556  48,970 

Guadaloupe 55,416  51,660 

Guiana 13,727  7,291 

Bourbon 56,059  71,094 

181,758  179,015 

t  At  Guadaloupe,  the  Bank,  with  a  capital  of  3,000,000  fr.,  has  seen  its  opera 
tions  increase,  from  7,176,347  fr.  in  1853-1854  to  21.962,212  fr.  in  1858-1859. 
The  advances  on  crops,  at  4  per  cent,  have  reached  2,861,897  fr.  The  net 
profit  is  14  per  cent.  (Report  of  July  28,  1859.) 

At  Martinico,  the  Bank,  in  1858-1859,  has  discounted  to  the  value  of 
27,000,000  fr.;  advanced  on  crops,  1,602,512  fr.,  instead  of  154,000  fr.;  and  dis 
tributed  a  dividend  of  8  81  per  cent.  (Report  of  July  19,  1859). 

At  Guiana,  with  a  capital  of  300,000  fr.,  the  Bank  has  discounted  on  1,832,622  fr. 
of  effects ;  it  has  made  no  advances  on  crops,  "  because  the  large  proprietors 
have  not  needed  credit,  and  the  others  do  not  offer  sufficient  guaranties."  It 
has  realized  a  net  profit  of  16.27  per  cent.  (Report  of  July  24,  1859.) 

At  Bourbon,  the  Bank,  with  a  capital  of  3,000,000  fr.,  has  loaned  from  1853  - 
1854,12,354,612  fr.;  and  its  operations,  rising  to  19,896,118  fr.  in  1854-1855, 
remained  the  same  in  1858-1859.  The  loans  on  crops  have  reached  1,945,694  fr., 
and  tended  to  exceed  2,500,000  fr.  The  dividend  has  been  9.57  per  cent.  (Re 
port  of  July  20,  1859.) 

I  am  indebted  for  this  information  to  the  kindness  of  M.  Lepelletier  de  Saint- 
Remy,  central  agent  of  the  colonial  banks. 


170  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

crown,  we  find  that  they  let  higher  than  before  1848, 
some  of  them  for  double.* 

If  we  follow  the  sales  in  the  colonial  journals,  we  see  that 
for  some  years  the  selling  prices  have  notably  increased. f 

If,  moreover,  the  capital  represented  by  agricultural 
property  were  greater,  the  mortgage  and  commercial  debts 
were  greater  in  a  proportion  exceeding  the  plus  value 
acquired,  rendered  illusory  from  the  impossibility  of  its 
realization.! 

It  is  not,  therefore,  rash  to  affirm,  that  the  position  of 
property,  and  its  selling  or  locative  value,  have  improved 
since  emancipation,  not  only  in  Bourbon  but  also  in  the 
West  Indies. 

Have  wages  greatly  increased  ? 

This  has  been  the  case  in  the  greater  part  of  the  English 
colonies,  and  the  result  seemed  inevitable.  Nevertheless, 
emancipation  in  our  French  colonies  has  been  remarkably 
effected.  Now,  as  M.  Mestro  truly  said  in  1848,  negro  labor 
is,  above  all,  a  question  of  remuneration,  and  the  latter  it 
self  is  only  a  question  of  credit.  § 

We  will  continue  to  except  Bourbon,  where  the  rise  of 
wages  has  necessarily  followed  the  enormous  increase  of 
production.^" 

In  the  Antilles  the  cost  of  a  slave  was  computed  in  1842 
at  from  50  to  60  centimes  per  day,  for  food  (whether  he  re 
ceived  the  ordinary  allowance,  or  took  Saturday  instead), 

*  Report  of  the  Director  of  the  Interior  of  Martinico. 

t  M.  Lepelletier  de  Saint-Remy,  in  the  Colonies  franqaises,  1859,  cites  a 
plantation  at  Guadaloupe,  valued  at  29,000  fr.  in  1854,  at  131,000  fr.  in  1858. 

|  M.  de  Chazelles,  p.  157,  note. 

§  Commission  of  1848,  p.  94. 

If  At  Bourbon,  where  immigration  is  effected  without  the  financial  interven 
tion  of  the  government,  the  transfers  of  immigrant  contracts,  which  were  nego 
tiated  in  the  beginning  at  the  rate  of  300  fr.,  have  reached  800  and  1,000  fr. 
Thus  the  power  of  free  labor  multiplying  by  itself,  the  planter  finds  himself 
rich  enough  to  pay,  for  a  hire  of  five  years,  a  much  higher  sum  than  he  re 
ceived  from  the  state  for  the  ownership  of  a  slave.  (Lepelletier  de  Saint-Remy, 
p.  43.) 


PEODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,   PROPERTY.  171 

clothing,  medical  care,  and  the  expense  of  supporting  the  wo 
men,  children,  and  infirm,  without  including  lodging.* 

According  to  another  calculation  made  in  1847,  after  the 
adoption  of  laws  for  ameliorating  the  condition  of  slaves, 
they  cost  annually  about  400  francs  per  head.f  Regarding 
these  two  calculations  as  extremes,  we  may  adopt  a  mean 
of  from  200  to  250  francs. 

The  average  wages  of  farm  laborers  is,  at  Martinico,  1  fr. 
25  c.  ;  at  Guadaloupe,  1  fr.,  without  including  the  cabin  and 
garden. J  But  there  are  only  about  250  working  days,  300 
at  most;§  while  the  slave  costs  the  same  every  day  of  the 
year.  Moreover,  the  burden  of  the  children  and  infirm  falls 
no  longer  on  the  proprietor.  Now  their  number  is  estimated 
at  ^nore  than  one  fourth  of  the  population  of  a  plantation. 
Between  250  or  300  fr.  with  these  burdens,  and  300  or  375 
without  such  incumbrance,  we  see  that  the  difference  is  not 
enormous. 

The  immigrant  costs  12  fr.  50  c.  per  month,  besides  board, 
or  from  60  to  80  centimes  per  day. 

In  short,  the  free  laborer  at  the  Antilles  costs  very  nearly 
the  same  as  did  the  slave  laborer. 

In  consideration  of  adding  to  his  floating  capital  the  sum 
necessary  to  the  increase  of  wages,  the  planter  has  the  ad 
vantage  of  a  more  ready  credit,  and  a  higher  sale  price, 
thanks  to  the  reduction  of  'taxes  and  the  increase  of  con 
sumption. 

In  fact,  the  average  actual  net  cost  at  the  entrepot  ||  of  100 
kilog.  of  sugar  was  :  — 

From  1840  to  1844   .    .    .    .  64  fr.  25  c. 
"   1845  "  1849  ....    59   73 

It  has  risen  :  — 

*  Computations  joined  to  the  report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  pp.  238,  239. 
t  Article  of  M.  Jarnier,  Revue  coloniale,  1847,  Tom.  XII.  p.  161. 
I  Lepelletier  de  Saint-Remy,  1859,  p.  41. 
$  Broglie,  p.  239.  ||  See  Table  No.  3. 


172  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

From  1849  to  1854       .         .         .         .     69  fr.  10  c. 
"      1854  "  1859  77       58^ 

In  short,  whatever  road  we  take,  we  always  come  to  the 
same  result. 

In  the  four  slave  colonies,  the  aggregate  of  commerce,  im 
ports  and  exports  united,  has  risen  above  the  figures  ante 
rior  to  1848. 

The  sum  of  exports,  and  consequently  production,  is 
higher  than  before  1848,  except  in  Guiana,  which  is  trans 
formed  into  a  penal  colony.  The  increase  is  inconsiderable 
at  Guadaloupe,  important  at  Martinico,  extraordinary  at 
Bourbon. 

The  quantity  of  sugar,  the  principal,  almost  exclusive 
product  of  the  colonies,  long  below  the  average  which  pre 
ceded  1848,  has  attained,  and  since  surpassed  it. 

Credit  is  easier,  wages  are  but  little  higher,  the  sale-price 
has.  risen,  even  before  the  reduction  effected  by  the  law  of 
1860. 

In  1847,  the  French  colonies  employed  2,022  vessels  of 
every  kind  and  destination  in  a  total  transportation  of 
115,694,170  francs. 

In  1857,  the  colonies  employed  2,488  vessels  in  a  total 
transportation  of  166,057,692  francs. 

In  1859,  the  colonies  employed  3,342  vessels  gauged  at 
593,929  tons,  and  manned  by  37,487  men,  in  a  total  trans 
portation  of  172,355,614  francs.* 

Let  us  cease  to  repeat,  therefore,  that  the  colonies  no 
longer  labor,  that  they  no  longer  produce,  since  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery. 

*  Revue  coloniale,  July,  1860,  p.  135. 

1847.  1857.  1859. 

Martinico          .        .        .673  vessels  711  1,180 

Guadaloupe  ...          847  956  1,2.18 

Guiana     ....      113  98  215 

Bourbon        ...          389  723  729 

2,022  2,488  3,342 


PRODUCTION,   COMMERCE,  WAGES,   PROPERTY.  173 

Is  this  to  say  that  their  condition  is  prosperous,  and  that, 
imaginary  invalids,  they  complain  without  reason  ? 

By  no  means.  The  condition  of  colonial  property  is  still 
far  from  enviable. 

But  this  chapter  already  establishes,  and  we  shall  con 
tinue  to  prove  from  our  special  stand-point,  that  this  con 
dition  is  not  the  result  alone  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and 
that  this  great  measure  has  not  exaggerated  wages,  has  not 
for  a  long  time  diminished  production  ;  that  property  is  more 
substantial  and  less  involved,  production  as  abundant,  the 
condition  of  commerce  more  flourishing. 

Why  are  the  culture  of  the  cane  and  the  manufacture  of 
sugar  still  stagnant  ?  At  Guadaloupe,  especially,  the  fig 
ures,  after  surpassing  those  of  1847,  do  not  stand  firm.  Is 
this  the  fault  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  ?  This  sugar  ques 
tion,  go  complicated  and  so  much  debated,  merits  a  sepa 
rate  examination,  which  will  be  the  object  of -the  following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE   QUESTION   OF   SUGARS 

THE  history  of  a  lump  of  sugar  is  a  whole  lesson  of  polit 
ical  economy,  of  politics,  and  also  of  morality. 

To  man,  sugar  is  not  even  a  need,  it  is  only  a  pleasure. 
But  since  man,  by  his  industry,  has  extracted  this  product 
first  from  the  cane  where  the  Creator  has  deposited  it  in 
such  great  abundance,  and  next  from  the  beet-root,  he  can 
no  longer  dispense  with  it.  The  production  and  traffic  of 
sugar  have  become  the  origin  of  an  incredible  amount  of 
labor  and  an  infinite  diversity  of  interests.  I  will  endeavor 
to  recall  their  nomenclature  :*  — 

1.  The  interest  of  France  to  possess  colonies; — -an  in 
terest  of  power,  since  they  serve  in  time  of  war  as  a  refuge 
to  her  flag,  in  time  of  peace  as  a  fulcrum  to  her  influence  ; 

—  an  interest  of  wealth,  since  the  impost  on  colonial  pro 
ducts  is  one  of  the  most  productive  resources  of  the  pub 
lic  treasury,  the  amount  of  this  tax  attaining  99,000,000 
francs  in  1858. 

2.  The  interest  of  the  colonies  to  enjoy  by  privilege  the 
commerce   of  France,  and   to   furnish  the  mother  country 
with  a  product  which  is  their  principal  wealth  ;  for  sugar 
represents  68,000,000  in  the  72,000,000  francs'  worth  which 
they  export  ;  it  employs  250,000  out  of  375,000  inhabitants, 

•  *  Consult  the  report?,  statements,  and  speeches  of  MM.  de  Saint-Cricq, 
Humann,  Gauthier  de  Rumilly,  d'Argout,  Chegaray,  Bugeaud,  Charles  Dupin, 
Dumon,  Rossi,  Benoist  d'Azy,  Beugnot,  Behic,  Dumas,  Buffet,  Ancel,  Kolb- 
Bernard,  Lavollee,  etc. 


THE  SUGAR   QUESTION.  175 

and  occupies  168,300  out  of  3H,351    acres   of  cultivated 
land.* 

3.  The  interest  of  the  merchant  shipping,  the  nursery  of 
the  navy.     Coal  is  the  principal  transport  of  the  English 
shipping  ;  cotton,  of  the  American  shipping  ;  wood,  of  the 
Swedish  shipping  ;  sugar,  of  our  own.     Our  sugar  colonies 
employ  eight  hundred  of  our  finest  vessels,  and  about  eleven 
hundred  sailors,  the  elite  of  the  service. 

4.  The  interest  of  commerce  in  the  colonies,  which  ex 
port,  in  the  seaports  which  build,  man,  fit  out,  and  commis 
sion,   and  in  the  towns  where  commerce  imports,   stores, 
re-exports,  sells,  and  retails. 

5.  The  interest  of  a  host  of  secondary  arts  and  manufac 
tures  which  have  sugar  for  their  basis,  —  refineries,  distiller 
ies,  confectioneries,  the  manufacture  of  liquors,  drugs,  etc.f 

6.  The  interest  of  science,  which  unceasingly  perfects  the 
processes  of  fabrication,  invents  the  means  of  separating 
crystallizable   from   uncrystallizable   matter,   of  heating  in 
vacuum,  arid   of  drying  by   turbines,   improves  apparatus, 
increases  the  quantity  extracted,  |  utilizes  the  residuum,  and 
demonstrates  more  and  more  the  healthfullness  of  sugar  and 
coffee  by  analyses  which  reveal  their  elements.  § 

7.  The  interest  of  the   immense  capital   involved  in  all 
these  operations. 

8.  The  interests  of  the  numerous  workmen  which  it  em 
ploys.    A  ship  is  not  launched  without  having  given  labor  and 

*  Report  of  M.  Be"hic  to  the  Council  of  State,  1850. 

t  At  Paris  alone,  the  single  commune  of  Villette,  annexed  to  Paris  by  the 
statute  of  June  24, 1859,  contained  at  that  time  7  refineries,  consuming  annually 
30,000,000  kilog.  of  Coal;  and  100  distilleries,  employing  1,000  workmen,  and 
doing  a  business  of  10,000,000  fr.  ( Observations  du  Conseil  municipale  de  la 
Villette,  dans  Venquete  de  1859. 

J  The  cane  contains  from  15  to  20  per  cent  of  sugar;  but  5  or  6  per  cent  is 
as  yet  extracted  from  it.  The  beet  contains  80  per  cent  water,  10  per  cent  pulp, 
and  10  per  cent  sugar;  5  or  6  per  cent  is  extracted. 

§  Works  of  MM.  Dumas,  Payen,  etc.,  which  establish  the  chemical  analogy 
of  sugar  with  wine,  fecula,  and  butter. 


176  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

wages  to  600  or  700  workmen,  —  carpenters,  joiners,  calkers, 
blacksmiths,  locksmiths,  sailmakers,  ropemakers,  coopers, 
painters,  nailsmiths,  tinsmiths.  The  number  of  workmen 
employed  directly  or  indirectly  in  the  service  of  a  lump  of 
sugar  is  immense,  from  the  negro  who  plants  the  cane  to 
the  grocer  who  sells  the  loaf,  from  the  porter  who  unloads 
to  the  cook  who  grates  it. 

9.  Lastly,  the  interest  of  the  consumers,*  whose  demand 
is  increasing,  since  France  contented  herself  in  1810  with 
4,000,000  kilogrammes,  arid  in  1816  with  24,000,000,  while 
she  now  consumes  more  than  120,000,000,  constantly  de 
manding  a  greater  quantity,  but  a  lower  price,  so  as  to 
make  the  use  of  a  healthful  product  possible  among  the 
poorer  classes. 

This  list  is  the  incomplete  picture  of  the  effects  produced 
here  on  earth,  because  it  pleased  the  Divine  Creator  to  hide 
in  an  obscure  vegetable,  exiled  to  a  torrid  corner  of  the 
earth,  a  saccharine  juice  which  pleases  our  palates.  We 
willingly  wander  from  this  little  object  of  human  labor  to 
the  contemplation  of  those  beautiful  laws,  so  well  set  forth 
•by  masters  of  moral  philosophy  and  political  economy,  the 
freedom  of  the  gifts  of  God,  the  creation  of  all  things  in 
view  of  an  enjoyment  rendered  legitimate  by  effort,  the 
fruitful  division  of  labor,  the  close  solidarity  of  all  interests 
from  one  end  of  the  planet  to  the  other,  the  fraternity,  even 
commercial,  of  all  members  of  the  family  of  men,  the  neces- 

*  It  follows,  from  a  table  joined  to  the  Decennial  Table  of  Customs,  1858, 
p  47,  that  sugar  has  borne  an  almost  incredible  part  in  the  progress  of  public 
consumption  and  revenue  during  the  last  half-century.  If  we  add  the  quantity 
which  France  has  fabricated  to  that  which  she  has  received,  and  deduct  that 
which  she  has  exported,  the  exact  amount  remains  of  the  quantities  which  she 
has  consumed. 

These  quantities  are  542,317  metrical  quintals  in  1827 

They  rose  ten  years  after  to    1,128,999  1837 

"  *  "  1,280,640  "  1847 

"  "  1,651,799  "  1856 

The  consumption  has  more  than  tripled,  therefore,  during  thirty  years. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.  177 

sary  union  of  intellect,  capital  and  labor.  Yes  !  we  should 
admire  without  reserve,  if  so  many  interests  had  not  re 
posed  for  three  centuries  upon  two  conditions  regarded  as 
indispensable,  —  slavery  and  the  slave-trade. 

Thtfs,  no  nation  without  shipping  and  commerce,  no  ship 
ping  and  commerce  without  colonies,  no  colonies  without 
culture,  no  culture  without  slaves  ;  —  this  is  the  odious 
series  of  reasonings  passed  into  the  rank  of  political  axioms, 
and  substituted,  during  three  centuries,  for  these  beautiful, 
too  ideal  harmonies. 

The  slave-trade  has  been  condemned  ;  have  the  colonies 
perished  ? 

Slavery  has  been  abolished  ;  have  production  and  com 
merce  been  annihilated  ?  We  have  demonstrated  the  con 
trary.  * 

Is  it  at  least  true  that  the  special  production  of  sugar, 
the  most  important  by  far  in  the  colonies,  has  been  sub 
jected,  since  the  abolition  of  slavery,  to  ruinous  conditions? 
Is  emancipation  to  be  held  responsible  for  this  situation  ? 

-Yes,  if  it  did  not  commence  until  1848.  No,  if  it  were 
already  critical  before  1848.  We  will  examine  separately 
the  history  of  these  two  periods. 

§  1.    THE  QUESTION  OF  SUGARS  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.    . 

• 

The  true  knot  of  the  question  is,  as  is  well  known,  the 
competition  of  the  beet-root  sugar,  which  was  not  thought 
of  in  1820  ;  which  already  produced  10,000,000  kilog.  in 
1830,  approached  30,000,000  kilog.  in  1840,  and  exceeded 
60,000,000  kilog.  in  1847,  precisely  the  year  when  the  duty 
on  both  sugars  became  equal  by  law,  August  1,  1847,  six 
months  before  the  Revolution  of  February. 

The  history  of  this  competition  is  another  very  curious 
lesson  in  political  economy. 

It  owes  its  birth  in  part  to  the  Continental  blockade,  its 

8*  L 


178  •        THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

progress  to  the  excessive  protection  obtained  by  the  colo 
nies,  its  triumph  to  their  improvidence.  "  Indigenous  sugar 
is  a  creation  of  taxation/'  said  M.  Rossi.* 

At  the  time  of  the  blockade,  our  colonies  were  lost  or 
ruined,  and  debarred  from  selling  to  the  mother  country,  to 
friends,  to  enemies,  or  to  neutrals  ;  misfortune,  as  usual, 
was  inventive,  and  obstacles  served  progress.  It  was  then 
that  men  set  to  work  to  extract  sugar  from  the  beet-root ; 
but,  despite  the  ministerial  circulars,  the  instructions  of  M. 
Parmentier,  and  the  encouragements  amply  tempered  by 
licenses  of  importation,  this  sugar  long  remained  an  experi 
ment  of  the  laboratory  rather  than  a  product  of  manufac 
ture.  The  processes  were  imperfect ;  the  net  cost  was  too 
high. 

While  scientific  men  continued  their  experiments  on  in 
digenous  sugar,  colonial  sugar  was  subjected  to  the  essays 
of  financiers. 

From  the  statute  of  May  15,  1791,  to  and  including  the 
decree  of  November  1,  1810,  we  count  eighteen  statutes  or 
decrees  which  altered  or  rather  tormented  the.  tariff  on  su 
gars,  carrying  the  duty  on  colonial  sugars  from  0  to  35,  45, 
and  90  fr.  per  100  kilog.,  and  the  duty  on  foreign  sugars 
from  36  fr.  22  c.  to  7  fr.  34  c.,  then  to  30,  75,  100,  200,  and 
400  fr.f 

*  The  firs^t  movement  of  the  Restoration  was  to  enter  upon 
a  liberal  path,  and  an  ordinance  of  Monsieur,  dated  April 
23,  1814,  subjected  French  and  foreign  sugars  to  the  same 
duty,  a  measure  demanded  by  the  consumption,  which  the 
colonies  could  not  satisfy,  but  which  excited  their  com 
plaints  to  such  a  degree  that,  on  the  17th  of  December  of 
the  same  year,  a  statute  fixed  at  60  and  95  fr.  the  duties  on 
raw  or  clayed  sugars  of  foreign  production,  maintaining  at 
40  and  70  fr.  the  duties  on  similar  French  sugars. 

*  Eeport  to  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  June  20, 1843. 

t  Question  of  the  tariff  on  sugars,  General  Council  of  Commerce,  session  of 
1850. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.  179 

The  statute  of  April  28,  1816,  raised  to  45  fr.  the  duties 
on  French  sugars,  to  75  fr.  the  duties  on.  foreign  sugars  im 
ported  by  French  ships,  and  to  80  fr.  those  brought  under 
a  foreign  flag.  The  extra  charge,  which  was  thus  30  fr.,  was 
raised  to  50  fr.  by  the  statute  of  July  22,  1822.*  In  1826, 
all  privilege  was  taken  away  from  sugars  produced  by  the 
French  East  Indian  possessions.  A  premium  on  exporta 
tion  had  been  accorded  to  refined  sugars,  June  7,  1820,  and 
this  premium,  suppressed  to  make  way  for  a  simple  draw 
back  duty  in  1822,  was  also  re-established  in  1826. 

We  thus  digressed  more  and  more  from  the  starting-point, 
not  ceasing  to  profess  the  doctrines  of  free  trade,  and  not 
ceasing  to  practise  —  while  setting  forth  exceptional  necessi 
ties,  and  declaring  that  they  should  be  provisional  —  a  pro 
gressive  system  of  protection,  even  of  privilege. 

Doubtless,  the  colonies,  if  sick,  became  convalescent  un 
der  this  regime  ;  they  produced  in  1816  above  17,000,000 
kilog.,  while  France  consumed  21,000,000  kilog.  ;  in  1818, 
30,000,000  kilog.,  while  the  consumption  attained  36,000,000 
kilog.  ;  thus  leaving  but  6,000,000  kilog.  to  be  furnished  by 
foreign  countries.  In  1822,  the  production,  more  than  tri 
pled  in  six  years,  was  52,000,000  kilogrammes. 

Doubtless  also  the  Treasury  found  its  account  in  this 
progress,  no  less  than  the  shipping  and  commerce. 

Doubtless,  lastly,  the  consumers  saw  with  pleasure  the 
prices  fall  from  90  and  93  fr.  per  50  kilog.  to  74  fr.  50  c. 
and  even  to  63  fr.  85  c.  in  1822.  But  the  colonists,  to  whom 
this  rate  still  left  a  remunerative  price  higher  by  20  fr.  per 
50  kilog.,  complained  and  obtained  new  favors  (statute  of 
May  17,  1826),  which  finally  expelled  foreign  sugar,  arid 
carried  the  price  to  83  and  even  106  francs. 

Foreign  sugar  was  vanquished,  profits  were  enormous, 
the  premiums  on  the  exportation  of  refined  sugars  paid  by 

*  From  April  21,  1818,  a  reduction  of  5  fr.  had  been  accorded  on  sugar  from 
Bourbon,  on  account  of  the  distance. 


180  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

the  Treasury,  carried  from  90  to  110  fr.  by  the  statute  of 
June  7,  1820,  were  raised  from  300,000  fr.  to  2,128,000  fr. 
in  1822  ;  replaced  by  the  simple  restitution  of  duties  (stat 
ute  of  July  27,  1822),  but  re-established  by  the  statute  of 
May  17,  1826,  they  attained  6,300,000  fr.  in  1828,  and  ex 
ceeded  19,110,000  fr.  in  1832.* 

The  colonies  flattered  themselves  that  they  triumphed  by 
these  exorbitant  privileges  ;  but  one  does  not  triumph  over 
the  laws  of  nature  by  the  laws  of  society.  These  privi 
leges  had  their  baleful  results  to  the  colonies  :  — 

1.  The  high  prices  kept  away  consumers  ; 

2.  They  decided  the  colonists  to  plant  sugar-cane  in  lands 
unfitted  to  this  culture,  and  to  sacrifice  the  production  of 
commodities  which  had  no  rivals  in  France,  and  exempted 
them  from  the  care  of  seeking  less  costly  and  more  effica 
cious  processes  of  manufacture  ; 

3.  They  encouraged  the  producers  of  indigenous  sugar, 
who  in  a  little  time  profited  more  than  the  colonists  by  the 
premiums  on  exportation. 

When  the  statute  of  April  26,  1833,  returning  to  the 
drawback  system  for  the  exportation  of  refined  sugars,  di 
vided  raw  sugars  into  two  classes,  white  and  brown,  reduced 
the  tariff  on  each  class,  and  lowered  the  extra  charge  on 
foreign  sugars,  it  was  no  longer  with  the  latter  that  colonial 
sugar  had  to  contend.  The  production  of  indigenous  sugar, 
which  in  1828  did  not  amount  to  3,000,000  kilog.,  was 
9,000,000  in  1831,  12,000,000  in  1832,  19,000,000  in  1833, 
and  was  destined  to  reach  50,000,000  in  1836. f 


*  The  impossibility  of  fixing  the  exact  proportion  of  the  conversion  of  raw 
into  refined  sugar,  leaves  a  margin  for  enormous  profits  in  re-exportation,  and 
this  explains  the  prodigious  increase. 

t  From  1816  to  1835,  the  number  of  acres  employed  in  the  culture  of  tho 
sugar-cane  rose,  in  Martinico,  to  ......  13,587 

Guadaloupe 17,924 

Guiana 2,484 

Bourbon 35,336 


SUGAR   QUESTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.  181 

Too  many  favors,  by  raising  up  rivals,  had  paved  the  way 
for  the  ruin  of  the  colonies. 

The  beet-root  sugar  was  taxed  in  turn,  but  after  fourteen 
years  of  freedom  ; — it  was  for  the  interest  of  the  colonies 
that  it  should  be  subjected  to  a  tax,  it  was  for  the  interest 
of  the  Treasury  that  this  tax  should  be  light,  to  encourage 
the  growth  of  the  taxable  material.  The  tax  was  at  first  10 
fr.  per  100  kilog.,  and  was  raised,  two  years  after,  to  15  fr. 
(Statute  of  July  18,  183T.)  This  insignificant  tariff',  which 
was  adopted,  however,  by  a  majority  of  but  one,  did  not 
prevent  the  manufacturers  from  throwing  50,000,000  kilog. 
of  sugar  into  market  in  1838  ;  the  crops  having  been  abun 
dant  this  same  year  in  the  colonies,  the  fall  was  excessive, 
and  the  embarrassment  became  such  that  the  Governors 
of  the  Antilles  and  the  government  took  the  responsibility, 
in  1839,  the  one  of  authorizing  the  colonies  to  sell  else 
where  than  in  France,  the  other  of  making  a  reduction,  by 
ordinance,  of  13  fr.  50  c.  on  colonial  sugars. 

Indigenous  sugar  was  subjected  to  a  duty  of  25  fr.  by  the 
statute  of  July  3,  1840,  which  fixed  at  45  fr.  the  duty  on 
colonial  sugar.  This  reaction  in  a  different  direction  struck 
a  death-blow  to  numerous  small  mills. 

Despite  this  blow,  despite  these  burdens,  such  was  the 
progress  of  indigenous  sugar-making,*  placed  within  the 
reach  of  science,  capital,  and  markets,  that  production, 
at  first  lessened,  resumed  its  upward  movement,  f  and  the 

The  number  of  acres  devoted  to  the  culture  of  coffee,  cotton,  cocoa,  and 
spices  diminished  to  3,268  in  Martinico, 

5,506  in  Guadaloupe, 

404  in  Guiana, 

7,561  in  Bourbon.  —  Notice  Officielles,  1840, 1  pp.  35,  143. 
*  To  produce  3,000,000  kilog.  in  1828,  the  indigenous  sugar  manufacture  em 
ployed  6,800  acres,  while  in  1836  it  produced  50,000,000  kilog.  with  4,207  acres 
only,  thus  producing  sixteen  times  as  much  with  less  than  half  as  much  land, 
f  1840     .......     23,000,000  kilog. 

1841  .        .        .        ."•.-•      .        27,000,000 

1842  .        /    -  «        .     .   .        .         •     31,000,000 


182  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

uneasiness  of  the  colonies,  shared  by  the  government,  was 
so  lively,  that,  January  10,  1843,  a  bill  proposed  the  absolute 
interdiction  of  the  manufacture  of  beet-root  sugar,  except  in 
consideration  of  preliminary  indemnity. 

An  interdiction  pronounced  at  the  beginning  might,  per 
haps,  have  been  comprehensible.  England,  in  establishing, 
at  first  sight,  without  circumspection,  equality  of  duties  for 
all  sugars,  had  stifled  a  manufacture  in  its  cradle,  the  de 
velopment  of  which  might  endanger  her  maritime  interests, 
her  colonies,  and  her  revenue,*  while  agriculture  had  as  yet 
no  need  of  this  new  product.  The  same  might  have  been 
done  in  France.  Labor  and  capital  did  not  lack  employ 
there,  while  the  new  manufacture  menaced  our  colonies, 
shipping,  and  exports  as  much  as  our  importations. 

But  at  the  point  which  things  had  reached,  the  position 
was  much  more  complicated,  and  both  causes  had  witnessed 
the  growth  of  the  importance  of  their  motives  and  the  num 
ber  of  their  advocates.  Thus  the  struggle  was  terrible. 

On  one  side  the  colonies  and  ports,  on  the  other  the  man 
ufactures  and  agriculture,  ranged  their  arguments  in  battle. 

The  colonies  said  :  — 

Either  free  us  from  the  colonial  compact,  and  let  us  sell 
and  buy  in  all  places  ;  or  else,  if  you  preserve  the  monopoly 
of  our  purchases,  guarantee  us  the  monopoly  of  our  sales  ; 
there  is  but  one  means  to  do  this,  absolutely  to  suppress* 
indigenous  sugar.  Whatever  may  be  the  tax,  it  will  either 
suppress  it  indirectly  and  without  indemnity,  or  it  will  suf 
fer  it  to  live  ;  iniquitous  in  the  first  case,  it  is  insufficient  in 
the  second.  Equality  of  taxation  does  not  involve  equality 
of  position  ;  now  we  have  not  the  resources  of  indigenous 
sugar,  yet  we  support  the  burdens  of  transportation,  com 
mission,  and  waste,  to  which  it  is  not  subject. 

The   ports   added  :    Threatened  with  being  deprived  of 

*  Rossi,  p.  13.     This  branch  of  manufacture  has  nevertheless  since  assumed 
great  importance. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.  183 

coasting,  by  the  rapid  growth  of  railways,  we  lose,  by  the 
rivalry  of  indigenous  sugar,  the  principal  homeward  freight 
of  our  distant  navigation.  The  weakening  of  our  merchant 
shipping  endangers  the  navy,  and  reduces  more  laborers  to 
want  than  are  employed  in  the  culture  of  the  beet-root  and 
the  manufacture  of  indigenous  sugar,  —  a  culture  and  manu 
facture  which  are  yearly  reducing  the  quantity  of  wheat  pro 
duced  by  French  soil. 

But  the  agriculturists  replied,  that  75,000  acres  of  beet 
root  would  produce   more   sugar  than  France  could  con 
sume,  _  and  what  were  75,000  acres  out  of  our  100,000,000 
acres  of  arable  land  ?     This  culture  of  a  tap-rooted,  weeded 
plant  was  excellent  to  prepare  the  earth  for  the  production 
of  wheat,  and  wheat  sown  after  a  crop  of  beets  would  pro 
duce  a  tenth  more  than  after  any  other  crop.*    The  alliance 
of  agriculture  and  the  arts  and  manufactures,  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  country  population,  the  augmentation  of  wages, 
the  increase  of  the  yield  and  market  value  of  lands,  the  im 
provement  of  the  food  of  cattle,  the  production  of  manures, 
were  favored  by  this  important  innovation.     The  manufac 
turers  added  that  the  production  of  100,000  kilog.  of  sugar 
corresponded  to  the  distribution  of  43,500  francs'  wages  ; 
that  an  enormous  sum  had  been  employed  in  improving 
processes   and  apparatus  ;  that,  if  indigenous   sugar  were 
;ree  from  certain  charges,  property  in  France  was  subject 
to   much  heavier   charges  than  in  the   colonies  ;  that  the 
produce  of  these  colonies  had  attained  its  maximum  ;  that 
the  ports  would  have  no  reason  to  complain  if  the  ships  re 
ceived  a  less  value  in  a  greater  bulk.     Lastly,  and  above 
all,  indigenous  sugar  presented  itself  as  the  benefactor  of 
the  nation,   since  it  had   enriched  the    Treasury,   lowered 
prices,  increased  consumption,  improved  agriculture. 
Some  devised  a  sort  of  mobile  scale  which  was  to  equalize 

*  Analyse  de  la  question  des  sucres,  by  Louis-Napoleon  Bonaparte.     Fortress 
of  Ham,  August,  1842. 


184  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

conditions,  raising  or  lowering  the  duties  on  either  sugar, 
according  as  their  comparative  production  was  greater  or 
smaller.  But  this  sort  of  financial  dynamics,  operating 
blindly  in  the  future,  had  few  partisans. 

A  glimpse  was  also  had  of  a  simultaneous  reduction  on 
both  sugars,  and  the  liberty  to  introduce  foreign  sugars.* 
The  shipping  interest  demanded  this  liberty  without  re 
nouncing  the  privilege  of  the  flag.  The  refiners  f  also 
demanded  it,  complaining  that  the  duties  paid  on  100  kilo 
grammes  of  raw  sugar  were  restored  on  70  per  cent  of 
refined  sugar,  and  pretended  that  the  production  was  below 
60  per  cent,  while  scientific  men  affirmed  that  it  was  over 
80  per  cent.  But  the  Treasury,  greatly  embarrassed  be 
tween  these  diverse  claims,  —  since  indigenous  sugar  had 
made  it  lose  more  than  200,000,000  francs  which  it  would 
have  collected  on  colonial  sugar,  but  in  turn  brought  it 
in  nearly  10,000,000  francs  yearly, —the  Treasury  relied 
little  on  the  uncertain  increase  which  the  extension  of  con 
sumption  would  bring  it  in  exchange  for  a  certain  loss  ; 
it  was  admitted,  that,  to  influence  the  habits  of  the  peo- 

*  In  January,  1837,  a  bill,  in  which  M.  Duchatel  took  the  initiative,  and  which 
was  reported  by  M.  Dumon,  proposed  a  reduction  of  20  fr.  It  was  rejected  by 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

f  For  the  sake  of  brevity,  we  do  not  begin  the  history  of  the  struggle  until 
the  birth  of  indigenous  sugar.  But  all  know  how  much  it  had  long  been  ham 
pered  by  the  trade  of  refining. 

Refining  on  the  spot  diminishes  the  quantity  of  exportable  matter,  but  in 
creases  its  value,  reduces  the  expense  of  transportation,  and  leaves  to  the  pro 
ducer  the  profits  of  the  rum  and  molasses  produced  by  the  distillation  of  the 
coarser  materials  arising  from  the  sugar. 

But  it  was  to  the  advantage  neither  of  the  refineries  nor  the  harbors  of  the 
mother  country.  Leaguing  together,  they  obtained  a  prohibition  of  the  estab 
lishment  of  new  refineries  by  the  colonies,  by  a  decree  of  council,  Jan.  21,  1684, 
and  a  tax  on  colonial  refined  sugars,  which  was  increased  from  8  liv.  to  22  liv. 
10  sols  per  quintal;  then  lastly  an  absolute  prohibition,  Nov.  26,  1698,  renewed 
by  the  statute  of  Dec.  17,  1814. 

In  default  of  refining,  the  colonies  adopted  claying,  a  more  imperfect  process; 
but  the  same  interest  procured  the  taxation  of  clayed  sugars  in  1791,  and  the 
extra  charge  imposed  by  the  statute  of  April  28,  1816,  was  almost  prohibitory. 

See  L' Etude  sur  le  systeme  colonial,  by  M.  de  Chazelles,  Chap.  II.  p.  76,  etc. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.  185 

pie,  the  reduction  must  be  considerable,  and  this  was  es 
timated  at  one  half,  or  25,000,000  on  50,000,000  francs. 
Now  it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  population  of  a 
country  rich  in  wine  and  fruits  were  about  suddenly  to 
prefer  coffee  to  beer,  tea  to  cider,  lemonade  to  wine. 

These  two  systems  of  a  reduction  and  a  mobile  scale 
being  set  aside,  there  remained  only  the  systems  of  equal 
izing  duties  and  of  suppressing  indigenous  sugar,  with  an 
indemnity.  The  government  had  strongly  proposed  the 
second,  the  Chambers  preferred  the  first. 

The  indemnity  had  the  advantage  of  settling  the  difficulty 
forever,  by  buying  out  the  interest  of  the  sacrificed  rival. 
But,  in  principle,  how  comprehend  that  the  state  should 
pay  an  indemnity  for  exercising  its  right  ?  in  practice,  how 
assign  this  indemnity  so  that  it  should  not  fall  arbitrarily 
into  the  hands  of  the  manufacturers,  instead  of  those  of  the 
laborers  and  freeholders  ?  How  kill  a  hardy,  intelligent, 
and  useful  business,  and  sacrifice  its  interests  with  those 
of  the  consumers  to  the  dissatisfied  interests  of  the  colo 
nies  ? 

They  preferred,  and  the  statute  of  July  2,  1843,  sanc 
tioned,  a  system  of  equality,  leaving  indigenous  sugar  but 
four  years  to  wait  for  it.  From  August  1,  1847,  the  duty 
was  therefore  45  francs  per  100  kilogrammes  on  sugars  of 
the  first  type,  colonial  or  indigenous,  with  the  exception  of 
a  reduction  of  7  fr.  50  c.,  by  reason  of  distance,  on  those 
of  Bourbon  ;  from  65  to  85  francs  on  foreign  brown  sugars, 
according  to  the  production  and  flag  ;  from  80  to  105  francs 
on  the  same  white  sugars. 

The  next  day  witnessed  the  closing  of  the  mills  which 

*  There  was  an  increase  of  one  tenth  for  superior  types.  The  type  is  not  a 
model,  but  a  limit.  A  first  type  being  given,  those  inferior  to  it  pay  the  same 
duty,  those  superior,  pay  more.  The  decree  of  June  13,  1851,  which  was  not 
put  into  effect  until  the  end  of  1852,  substituted  for  the  system  of  types,  tax 
ation  according  to  saccharine  matter  and  production. 


186  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

had  reopened  or  had  exaggerated  their  production  in  view 
of  an  indemnity,  but  the  gradual  augmentation  of  duties* 
did  not  arrest  the  progress  of  indigenous  sugar. 

We  will  sum  up  in  a  few  lines  the  condition  matters  had 
reached  in  1847,  the  eve  of  emancipation. 

Both  sugars  paid  equal  duties.  The  colonial  sugar,  pro 
tected  little,  then  much,  then  too  much,  had  seen  this  fa.vor 
raise  up  a  dangerous  rival.  This  rival,  unperceived,  dis 
dained,  then  dreaded,  taxed  more  and  more,  and  threatened 
with  total  interdiction,  had  conquered  equality  before  the 
Treasury. 

But  this  was  the  only  equality  between  the  two  rivals. 
The  same  force  of  impulse  did  not  regulate  their  progress, 
—  the  one  made  rapid  strides,  the  other  nearly  stood  still. 

SUGARS  CONSUMED  OR  REFINED  IN  FRANCE. f 

Foreign  Sugar.  Colonial  Sugar.  Indigenous  Sugar.  Total. 

Met.  quintals.  Met.  quintals.  Met.  quintals.  Met.  quintals 

1827-1836  13,983  708,651  130,500  853,134 

1837-1846  80,829  773,079  366,763  1,220,671 

Thus,  in  twenty  years  the  quantity  consumed  or  refined 
had  increased  one  fourth. 

In  this  sum  total,  foreign  sugar  represents  a  quantity  seven 
times  larger,  indigenous  sugar  has  tripled,  colonial  sugar  has 
not  increased  even  one  seventh. 

In  1827    Colonial  sugar  furnished          .         .         .     593,733  m.  q. 
Foreign  sugar     .....  9,444 

Indigenous  sugar     .....  0 

of  a  total  quantity  of  603,177  m.  q.  subjected  to  duties,  or 
almost  the  whole  consumption. 

In  1847,  colonial  sugar  no  longer  furnished  even  one  half. 

*  While  the  collection  of  the  tax  on  exotic  sugar  was  effected  without  diffi 
culty,  that  of  the  tax  on  indigenous  sugar  gave  rise  to  enormous  frauds,  and  to 
numerous  legislative  measures.  (See  the  excellent  reports  of  M.  Damon,  April 
29,  1842,  and  M.  Benoist  d'Azy,  July  16,  1844,  April  12  and  June  16,  1845.) 

f  Decennial  Table  of  Customs,  1858,  p.  67. 


SUGAR   QUESTION  BEFORE   EMANCIPATION.  187 

Colonial  sugar   .         .        •.  •         •         878,201 

Foreign  sugar 

Indigenous  sugar        ...         .         •         •         523,703^ 

Total  .         .         .         •         •    '  1,498,225  m.q. 

And  indigenous  sugar  absorbs  by  itself  alone  almost  the 
whole  of  the  increase  attained  in  consumption. 

Meanwhile,  the  price  of  sugar,  which  had  been  73  fr.  50  c. 
per  50  kilog.  in  1820,  fell  to  55  fr.  in  1847.* 

Diminished  to  22,748,204  kilog.  in  1.840,  under  the  empire 
of  a  statute  which  no  longer  permitted  any  to  make  indige 
nous  sugar,  except  those  who  had  a  monomania  for  it,  as 
exclaimed  Marshal  Bugeaud,f  the  indigenous  production 
remounted  in  1847  to  60,169,000  kilog.  %  The  beet-root, 
which  did  not  occupy  50,000  acres  before  1840,  extended 
over  nearly  75,000  in  1847,  and  employed  more  than  three 
hundred  mills. 

In  short,  §  in  1847  the  beet-root  had  conquered  the  sugar 
cane,  a  production  which  may  be  infinitely  extended, 

which  can  lack  neither  labor  nor  ground,  in  an  orderly 
community,  within  reach  of  markets,  science,  and  credit, 
threatened  more  and  more  a  production  which  was  limited 
at  once  by  a  confined  territory,  the  insufficiency  of  labor, 
and  the  defects  of  a  state  of  society  exposed  to  inevitable 
transformation.  || 

Thus  the  condition  of  commerce  and  property  in  the 
colonies  was  every  year  represented  to  the  public  authori 
ties  of  the  mother  country  as  in  decline,  arid  in  peril  of 
death. 

*  See  Table  No.  3. 

t  Report  of  Count  Beugnot,  1851. 

t  In  1836.  M.  Crespel  declared  before  the  Commission  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  that  the  establishment  of  a  duty  would  result  in  destroying  indigenous 
manufacture;  that  it  would  close  all  its  factories  and  transport  them  to  foreign 
countries.  (Report  of  M.  Dumon.) 

§  Report  of  M.  Dumon,  1848. 

II  Exposition  of  the  reasons  of  M.  Guizot  in  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  May  19, 
1847. 


188  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

To  form  an  idea  of  the  condition  of  colonial  property  be 
fore  1848,  read  the  reports  of  M.  Rossi  to  the  Chamber  of 
Peers,  and  of  M.  Dalloz  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  on 
the  bill  relative  to  mortgages  and  forced  expropriation  in 
the  Antilles,  and  the  discussion  in  the  Chamber  of  Peers.* 
All  the  testimony  agrees  in  confirming  the  estimate  given  by 
an  official  document,  f  which  fixes  at  one  fourth  or  one  third 
of  the  territorial  value  the  amount  of  mortgage  debt  in  the 
colonies  of  Martinico  and  Guadaloupe,  or  140,000,000  or 
150,000,000  francs  on  a  value  of  500,000,000,  while  the 
mortgage  debt  of  France  did  not  exceed  23  per  cent  of  its 
landed  capital.  It  was  asserted  that  the  expenses  of  civil 
courts  in  Martinico  amounted  to  1,700,000  francs  per  year, 
nearly  the  sum  of  the  appropriation  inscribed  in  the  budget 
for  the  colony.  The  absence  of  credit  and  the  scarcity  of 
ready  money  had  raised  the  rate  of  interest  in  the  colonies 
to  12,  16,  24,  and  30  per  cent.  One  of  their  defenders  re 
jected  the  application  of  the  expropriation  law  for  fear  of 
what  he  called  patting  them  up  at  universal  auction ;  and 
in  fact,  this  law,  postponed,  except  at  Bourbon,  at  the  time 
of  the  promulgation  of  the  Civil  Code  (1805),  deliberated 
on  in  1822  and  1839,  proposed  in  1840,  then  withdrawn, 
presented  in  1842,  discussed  and  voted  by  the  Chamber  of 
Peers,  reported  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  postponed 
anew,  then  again  brought  up  in  1847,  was  not  destined  to 
precede  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  colonists  were  to 
lose  at  once  what  an  ardent  abolitionist  J  called  the  privi 
lege  of  owning  men  and  of  not  paying  their  debts.  A  graver 
authority,  Admiral  Roussin,  in  1842,  had  summed  up  the 
position  in  these  strong  words  : 

"  At  Martinico,  Guadaloupe,  and  Guiana,  it  may  be  said 

*  Moniteur,  1848,  pp.  106,  459,  471,  479,  481,  490. 
t  Report  of  M.  Lavollee,  Inspector  of  Finances. 

J  M.  Gatine,  proces-verbaux  de  la  Commission  de  1848.     The  word  white/washing 
was  commonly  used  to  express  liquidation  without  expropriation. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.  189 

with  certainty,  that,  save  very  rare  exceptions,  private 
property  exists  no  longer,  and  is  only  a  word  devoid  of 
meaning.  Those  who  own  property  there  have  no  more 
credit  than  those  who  own  none,  so  general  is  the  opinion 
that  all  estates  are  encumbered  with  debts  above  their 
value.  I  do  not  seek  here  into  the  cause  of  this  condition, 
but  I  affirm  the  fact,"  * 

The  learned  defender  of  the  colonies,  M.  Charles  Dupin, 
sought  the  cause,  but  did  not  deny  the  condition,  and 
seemed  unable  to  find  expressions  strong  enough  to  char 
acterize  such  excess  of  want,  such  immensity  of  suffering. f 

In  1822,  M.  Portal  verified  the  same  trials.  In  1822,  the 
Minister  of  the  Marine  addressed  a  report  to  the  king,  con 
taining  these  words  :  "  The  suffering  of  our  colonies  is  a 
veritable  public  calamity."  J 

It  is  known  by  what  laudable  efforts  the  Restoration  and 
the  Monarchy  of  July  combated  and  diminished  these  suf 
ferings,  but  in  1847  they  are  seen  again  as  poignant  as 
before. 

The  complaints  of  the  colonies  equalled,  and  even  sur 
passed,  their  sufferings,  and  they  demanded  with  one  voice, 
not  only  equality  of  taxation,  but  a  large  reduction  in  favor 
of  colonial  sugars. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  1847.  It  is  important  to 
characterize  it  clearly,  so  as  not  to  suffer  to  be  imputed  to 
the  abolition  of  slavery  the  responsibility  of  the  evils  which 
preceded  it. 

§  2.    THE   SUGAR  QUESTION   FROM  EMANCIPATION   TO   THE  LAW 
OF  MAY  23,   1860. 

After  the  Revolution,  emancipation,  and  universal  suffrage 
had  fallen  simultaneously  upon  "this  most  suffering,  most 

*  Chamber  of  Peers,  March  8,  1842,  Moniteur,  p.  471. 

f  Ibid.  p.  460. 

$  M.  de  Chazelles,  p.  102. 


190  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

delicate,  and  most  fragile  body,"  as  styled  by  M.  Rossi  in 
1841,  immediate  indemnity  and  reduction  of  duties  were 
loudly  demanded.  It  was  justice,  it  was  necessity. 

From  1850,  government  had  proposed  a  bold  and  radical 
reform.*  The  overthrow  of  the  colonies  seemed  regarded 
as  almost  admitted  and  irremediable.  Their  production, 
which  had  surpassed  102,000,000  kilog.  of  sugar  in  1845,  fell 
to  63,000,000  in  1848,  to  51,000,000  in  1849,  to  40,000,000 
in  1850.  Doubtless,  the  indigenous  manufacture  had  also 
fallen  from  60,000,000  kilog.  in  1847,  to  56,000,000  in  1848, 
and  to  44,000,000  in  1849,  but  to  rise  again,  in  1850,  to 
64,644,994  kilog. 

The  consumption  had  followed  the  same  decline,  descend 
ing  from  132,000,000  kilogrammes  in  1847  to  98,000,000 
in  1848,  to  return  to  116,000,000  in  1849  and  121,000,000  in 
1850,  checked  by  a  rise  of  17  fr.  4  c.  per  kilogramme.  The 
receipts  of  the  Treasury,  from  59,000,000  francs  in  1847, 
were  but  46,000,000  in  1858,  and  58,000,000  in  1849. 

It  was  clear  that  the  equality  of  taxes  corresponded  to 
extreme  inequality  of  conditions  ;  it  was  necessary  to 
change  them.  To  lower  the  duties  on  colonial  sugars  6 
francs  ;  to  increase  the  consumption  by  a  large  reduction, 
from  45  to  25  francs,  but  progressively  and  at  stated 
periods,  so  as  to  popularize  the  use  of  so  salutary  a  pro 
duct,  while  restoring  to  the  Treasury  what  it  abandoned  ; 
to  open  the  door  somewhat  wider  to  the  introduction  of 
foreign  sugars,  to  the  same  end,  and  also  to  indemnify 
the  shipping  for  the  diminution  of  colonial  transporta 
tion,  —  such  was  the  policy  of  the  bill  in  which  a  dis 
tinguished  Minister,  M.  Buffet,  took  the  initiative,  and  of 
which  Count  Beugnot  was  the  intelligent,  complete,  and 
impartial  reporter. 

Some  went  further,  and  MM.  Levasseur  and  Desjobert 
proposed  to  declare  the  colonial  compact  broken,  and  to 

*  See  the  two  remarkable  reports,  already  cited,  of  MM.  Behic  and  Beugnot. 


SUGAE  QUESTION  AFTER.  EMANCIPATION.  191 

leave  to  the  colonies  full  internal  and  external  liberty,  pre 
serving  only  the  national  sovereignty  and  political  bonds. 
A  bold,  logical,  but  premature  proposition,  it  was  at  least 
entertained  at  a  moment  when  the  mother  country  and  the 
colonies  were  scarcely  in  a  condition  to  support,  after  so 
many  shocks,  the  experience  of  new  economical  theories. 

The  law  on  sugars,  worked  over,  discussed,  at  length 
passed,  June  13,  1851,  after  three  deliberations,  by  450  votes 
against  228,  appeared  in  the  Moniteur  on  the  26th  of  June. 
But  it  was  not  to  take  effect  until  January  1,  1852. 

Before  this  epoch,  the  Assembly  had  ceased  to  exist,  and 
from  March  27,  1852,  a  decree*  returned  to  the  old  duty  of 
45  fr.,  fixed  in  1816  on  colonial  sugars,  and  5t  fr.  on  foreign 
sugars,  according  for  four  years  a  detax  of  T  fr.  on  colonial 
sugars.  Continued  by  the  law  of  June  28,  1856,  but  re 
duced  gradually  to  3  fr.,  this  detax  was  to  end  June  30, 
1861,  but  has  been  prolonged  by  the  law  of  May  23,  1860, 
till  June  30,  1866. f 

Boldly  resuming  the  idea  of  1851,  in  the  face  of  a  con 
sumption  which  amounted  to  200,000,000  kilog.  in  1848, 
and  to  185,000,000  in  1849,  and  poured  into  the  treasury 
99,000,000  fr.  net  in  1858  and  94,000,000  in  1859,  this  law 
ventures  on  a  sudden  diminution  of  four  ninths  (from  49  to 
25  fr.),  which  will  cost  the  treasury  nearly  50,000,000  the 
first  year,  counting  confidently  that  the  consumption  en 
couraged  by  the  fall  of  prices  will  descend  to  the  work 
ing  classes,  and  restore  to  the  treasury  what  it  hazards. 
This  confidence  is  reasonable,  since  in  England  the  con 
sumption  is  15£  kilog.  per  head,  in  Switzerland  8  kilog., 
in  Holland  t  kilog.,  in  France  3  kilog.  only.  At  the  same 
time,  the  colonies  will  be  released  from  a  duty  nearly  equal 
to  half  the  value  of  the  product,  and  will  continue  to  be  pro 
tected  against  indigenous  sugar,  as  the  latter  was  formerly 
against  them.  Indigenous  sugar,  pursuing  its  progress 

*  Moniteur,  March  29,  p.  809.  t  Report  of  M.  Ancel. 


192  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

after  having  braved  duties,  will  brave,  as  M.  Dumas  an 
nounced  in  the  discussion  of  1851,  the  foreign  sugar  that 
will  be  introduced  more  freely.  The  shipping,  still  pro 
tected,  will  profit  by  a  double  element  of  transportation. 
The  consumer  who  paid  11  fr.  per  kilog.  in  1810,  and  3  fr. 
in  1816,  will  pay  less  than  one  franc.* 

These  reductions  of  tariff  are  bold,  risking  as  they  do  more 
than  50,000,000  francs  of  the  resources  of  the  Treasury, 
but  intelligent  and  popular.  The  example  of  England  en 
courages  them,  as  we  shall  see.  Financial  science  approves 
them,  demonstrating  more  and  more,  that  the  reduction  of 
taxes  makes  cheap  markets,  when  the  reduction  is  notable 
and  sudden  enough  for  its  insensible  action  not  to  be  lost 
on  the  way  in  the  adroit  profits  of  middlemen,  f  and  that 
cheapness  makes  bulky  duties  and  draws  large  sums  out 
of  small  profits.  Imprudent,  sterile,  when  accorded  to 
products  the  use  of  which  cannot  be  extended,  as  wine, 
salt,  etc.,  the  reduction  of  duties  is  wise  and  profitable 
when  it  suffers  commodities  to  come  within  the  reach  of 
all,  which  all  desire  and  do  not  consume.  Hygiene  also 
approves  it.  Politics  cannot  complain  of  it,  since  this  meas 
ure  results  from  no  international  engagement.  Humanity 
felicitates  it  on  seeing  comfort  descend  among  all 'ranks. 

As  to  the  colonies,  the  time  for  receiving  great  benefit 
from  it  had  gone  by.  For  twelve,  or  rather  twenty  years, 
they  had  demanded  a  large  reduction  on  their  commodities. 
Proposed  in  1837,  then  again  in  1850,  they  have  at  length 
obtained  it.  If  they  do  not  profit  by  it,  it  is  not  emancipa 
tion  that  they  should  blame,  but  themselves  -;  for  it  is  found 
that  this  reduction  came  at  a  moment  when  emancipation 
had  finished  its  work,  when  labor  and  production  had  at 
tained  or  surpassed  the  figures  of  184T.  Neither  let  it  be 

*  We  refer  to  the  close  of  the  chapter  for  the  conditions  of  the  law  of  1860, 
concerning  coffees,  cocoas,  and  teas, 
t  The  middlemen  here  are  unfortunately  very  powerful  and  very  numerous. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.  193 

said  that  emancipation  had  done  so  much  harm  that  it  was 
necessary  to  make  the  reduction.  The  reduction  was  not 
obtained  for  the  first  time  until  1852,  when  it  could  no 
longer  repair  the  early  disasters  ;  and  was  effected  the 
second  time  after  these  disasters  had  been  effaced. 

All  secondary  cultures  have  been  sacrificed  to  the  sugar 
cane,  and  this  sugar,  protected  to  excess,  has  been  con 
quered  by  indigenous  sugar,  the  birth  of  which  grew  out 
of  this  very  protection.  Such  is  the  truth.  Not  freedom, 
but  the  beet-root,  has  caused  the  present  position. 

But,  lastly,  why  and  how  has  colonial  sugar  been  con 
quered  by  indigenous  sugar  to  such  a  degree  that  it  is  ne 
cessary  to-day  to  protect  it  ?  It  is  interesting  to  press  the 
question  more  closely,  and  to  elicit,  not  the  only,  but  the 
principal  cause  of  this  inferiority  of  long  standing. 

Two  essential  lessons,  if  I  mistake  not,  may  be  drawn 
from  it  ;  the  one  interests  political  economy,  the  other  es 
pecially  concerns  the  question  of  slavery. 

Extreme  protection,  the  search  after  a  chimerical  equi 
poise,  equality,  interdiction,  are  wellriigh  vain  formulas. 
We  can  neither  revive  an  expiring  trade,  nor  kill  a  hardy 
one  by  a  blow  of  the  tariff.  Dams  do  not  make  a  running 
stream  of  stagnant  water.  Barriers  do  not  prevent  the  river 
from  flowing,  should  it  wear  itself  a  new  bed. 

Now  colonial  sugar  was  the  stagnant  water,  indigenous 
sugar  the  running  stream.  An  exaggerated  protection  has 
killed  the  colonies,  which  sacrificed  everything  to  the  cul 
ture  of  the  sugar-cane.  At  the  same  time  it  has  killed  the 
sugar-cane,  by  raising  it  up  an  unlooked-for  rival.  Contin 
ual  changes  in  the  laws  have  hampered  this  rival  greatly, 
yet  in  vain.  Neither  the  treasury,  nor  the  colonies,  nor 
business,  has  been  benefited  by  these  essays. 

"In  this  long  table/'  said  M.  Benoist  d'Azy,*  admirably, 
"in  this  long  table  of  the  successive  variations,  or  rather 

*  Report  of  July  16,  1844. 


194  THE   FKENCH   COLONIES. 

alternations,  of  opinions  and  decisions,  we  see  with  pro 
found  regret  how  distressing  these  continual  oscillations 
must  have  been  to  all  the  trades  which  are  bound  up  with 
these  great  questions,  and  there  is  reason  to  be  astonished 
that  the  evil  is  not  greater  than  it  is.  Who  could  have 
been  daring  enough  to  invest  capital  in  real  estate  in  far-off 
colonies,  to  change  all  the  processes  of  fabrication,  to  build 
ships,  to  apply  his  mind  to  distant  trade  and  navigation,  to 
fix  his  fortune  and  children  there,  or  even  to  attempt 
with  sufficient  help,  on  the  national  territory,  great  and  ex 
pensive  enterprises,  uniting  agriculture  and  manufactures, 
in  the  face  of  this  species  of  intermittent  fever,  which  every 
year  called  in  question  the  existence  of  those  who  devoted 
themselves  to  such  operations  ?  We  often  seek  the  cause 
of  the  suffering  or  comparative  weakness  of  some  one  of 
our  branches  of  trade  ;  it  comes,  in  great  part,  from  the 
everlasting  inconstancy  of  our  doctrines  concerning  the  pro 
tection  which  is  due  them. 

"  Uncertainty  in  the  commercial  and  industrial  govern 
ment  of  a  country  is  a  hundred  times  worse  than  a  bad  sys 
tem,  for  nothing  is  more  opposed  to  all  spirit  of  enterprise 
or  progress,  to  all  generous  and  useful  effort." 

There  comes  a  time  when,  weary  of  this  long  uncertainty, 
of  these  barriers  which  check  nothing  and  these  favors 
which  develop  nothing,  all  interests  are  wellnigh  united  in 
demanding  of  freedom  of  production  that  formula  which 
all  the  financial  combinations  have  been  unable  to  find.* 

But  there  is  a  lesson  more  directly  applicable  to  the 
subject  which  occupies  our  attention. 

Of  the  two  countries  which  produce  sugar,  on  which  side 
has  Nature  placed  the  advantage  ? 

Evidently  on  the  side  of  the  colonies  ;  the  soil  is  more 
fruitful,  the  sun  more  ardent,  the  seasons  more  regular,  the 

*  It  was  demanded  by  M.  Passy  in  1832,  and  report  of  M.  Bdhic,  1830,  p.  9, 
and  by  M.  Humann  in  1826.  (Moniieur,  p.  298.) 


SUGAR  QUESTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.  195 

sugar-cane  twice  as  saccharine  and  easier  worked  than  the 
beet-root. 

What,  then,  have  the  colonies  lacked  ? 

Not  time,  for  during  two  centuries  they  had  the  monop 
oly.  Not  favor,  for,  before  the  first  Revolution,  the  colonies 
paid  only  5  fr.  duty  per  100  kilogrammes.*  After  the  first 
abolition,  they  ceased  to  pay  any  tax  ;  f  since  the  Restora 
tion,  they  have  had  fifteen  years7  monopoly  and  thirteen 
years'  protection.  Not  labor,  for,  till  1830,  they  had  the 
slave-trade,  till  1848,  slavery.  Not  wealth,  J  for  they  long 
sold  sugar  at  high  prices,  not  only  at  1,100  fr.  per  100 
kilogrammes  during  the  blockade,  an  epoch  when  smugglers 
profited  more  by  these  prices  than  the  colonies,  but  during 
the  Restoration  at  88,  91,  99,  and  even  116  fr.  per  100 
kilogrammes  ;  lastly,  even  after  the  rivalry  of  indigenous 
sugar,  very  often  at  a  price  superior  to  the  net  cost,  —  a 
price  burdened,  doubtless,  with  charges  of  transportation  to 
which  this  rival  was  not  subject,  but  obtained  by  laborers 
who  demanded  no  wages,  on  estates  protected  against  dis 
possession. 

During  this  long  endurance  of  privilege  and  prosperity, 
what  prevented  the  colonists  then  from  improving  their 
processes  of  manufacture,  from  securing  the  immigration 
of  first-rate  mechanics  and  artisans,  from  extracting  a  more 
abundant  and  less  costly  yield  from  the  admirable  plant 
placed  in  their  hands  by  the  Creator,  —  in  a  word,  from 
doing  beforehand  through  interest  what  they  courageously 
did  afterwards  through  necessity  ? 

"With  the  stationary  capital,  uselessly  lavished  on  the 
colonies/7  said  M.  Rossi, §  "more  sugar  might  have  been 
made  than  the  five  continents  consume.  Two  thirds  of  the 

*  Letters  patent  of  177T. 
t  Statute  of  1793. 

J  To  hear  the  former  colonists  of  St.  Domingo,  there  was  not  one  that  had 
not  lost  from  50,000  to  100,000  livres'  income. 
§  Report,  1843,  p.  49. 


196  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

sugar  of  the  cane  escapes  in  the  operations  of  a  manufac 
ture  yet  in  its  infancy." 

"Such  is  the  state  of  agriculture/'  said  M.  de  Broglie, 
"that,  by  the  aid  of  easy  reforms,  the  colonies  might, 
without  additional  expense,  obtain  an  increase  of  one  third, 
perhaps  even  one  half,  of  their  present  yield.  The  processes 
of  manufacture  are  still  what  they  were  one  hundred  and 

fifty  years  ago It  is  astonishing  that  it  is  possible 

to  obtain  any  sugar  by  working  in  this  manner."* 

See,  on  the  contrary,  the  manufacture  of  indigenous 
sugar.  By  reason  of  the  high  prices,  this  beautiful  branch 
of  industry  departed  from  the  hands  of  science,  and  passed 
into  the  mills.  The  imposition  of  a  tax  suppressed  ill- 
begotten  works,  but  stimulated  those  which  were  viable  ; 
favored,  the  business  grew  ;  fettered,  it  became  transformed, 
changed  apparatus,  f  changed  markets,  and  such  was  the 
progress  that  283  mills,  in  1848,  produced  56,000,000  kilo 
grammes,  while  386  mills,  in  1841,  produced  only  26,000,000 
kilogrammes  ;  the  same  number  of  acres,  sown  at  the  two 
given  periods,  produced  in  the  second  a  yield  superior  to 
that  of  the  first  ;  the  same  quantity,  100  kilogrammes,  ex 
acted  14  fr.  80  c.  in  the  first,  and  5  fr.  only  in  the  second.  J 
Lastly,  the  same  product  which,  in  1837,  objected  to  5  fr. 
50  c.  duty  per  100  kilogrammes,  supported  54  fr.  in  1859.  § 

Who  then,  once  more,  prevented  the  colonists,  before 
this  formidable  rivalry,  from  realizing  all  this  progress  ? 

A  competent  and  well-informed  witness,  in  1847,  wrote 
words  from  Martinico  which  may  be  applied  to  all  the  slave 
colonies,  and  which  are  the  best  reply  to  this  question  :  — 

"  Agriculture  here  is  in  an  almost  savage  state,  and  also 
demands  emancipation.  With  incredible  exuberance  of 

*  Report,  p.  69. 

t  Processes  of  Rousseau,  Melsens,  Dubrunfaut,  etc.  Remark,  however,  that  if 
the  substitution  of  large  mills  for  small  ones  be  a  progress  in  manufacture,  it  is 
not  a  happy  change  in  an  agricultural  point  of  view. 

J  Report  of  M.  Be"hic,  p.  28.  §  See  Table  D. 


SUGAR  QUESTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.  197 

labor,  scarcely  a  third  of  the  lands  are  improved.  Pro 
ductive  estates  are  daily  abandoned  for  new  clearings  ;  the 
slave  toilingly  attempts  the  most  barbarous  cultivation  with 
impossible  implements,  and,  the  processes  of  manufacture 
aiding,  there  is  obtained  from  the  soil  scarcely  one  fourth 
of  its  product What  can  matter  agricultural  amelio 
ration  to  men  whose  condition  seems  destined  never  to  be 
ameliorated  ?  And  how  fail  to  comprehend  the  disgust 
of  the  colonist  at  unsuccessful  experiments  ?  The  slave 
detests  the  soil,  the  mulatto  and  the  freedman  despise  it, 
and  the  white  works  it  hastily,  as  one  eagerly  searches  a 
mine,  thinking  soon  to  abandon  it."  * 

In  1843,  the  illustrious  M.  Rossi  summed  up  the  leading 
feature  of  the  picture  in  these  words  :  — 

"What  the  colonist  should  dread  are  his  own  habits,  "f 

The  colonist  is  indolent,  the  Frenchman  is  active  ;  the 
colonist  follows  Routine,  the  Frenchman  is  in  quest  of 
progress  ;  the  colonist  takes  his  pleasure  and  runs  in  debt, 
the  Frenchman  speculates  and  undertakes  new  enterprises  ; 
to  one,  idleness  is  the  sign  of  wealth,  to  the  other,  labor  is 
the  condition  of  it.  The  first  drives  slaves,  the  second 
employs  machinery ;  on  one  side  is  servile  labor,  and  Creole 
society,  its  work  ;  on  the  other  is  free  labor,  and  French 
society,  its  offspring. 

Let  no  one  repeat,  then,  that  the  abolition  of  slavery  has 
killed  the  colonies  ;  so  many  proofs  establish  that  they  had 
already  long  been  dying  of  a  disease  which  was  no  other 
than  slavery. 

If  ever  economists  seek  a  proof  of  the  superiority  of  free 
labor  over  servile  labor,  of  a  community  that  labors  over  a 
community  that  makes  others  labor,  let  them  study  this 

*  M.  Gamier,  employed  in  the  Direction  of  the  Interior  at  Martinico.  Revue 
coloniale,  p.  138,  1847,  Tom.  XII. 

t  See  also  the  excellent  pages  18,  19,  and  22  of  the  report  of  M.  Benoist 
d'Azy 


198  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES.      . 

curious  history  of  the  struggle  between  the  sugar-cane  and 
beet-root ;  the  demonstration  is  striking,  and  is  worth  the 
trouble  it  gives  the  mind  to  make  its  way  through  these 
rebutting  and  confused  details. 

§  3.    COFFEE,  COCOA,  TEA. 

EMANCIPATION  is  not  to  be  accused  of  having  diminished 
the  coffee  plantations  of  our  colonies ;  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  exaggeration  of  the  protective  duty  on  sugars  has 
caused  the  sacrifice  of  coffee,  indigo,  and  cotton  to  the 
planting  of  the  sugar-cane  and  the  large  revenue  that  it 
promised.  "Warnings  have  not  been  lacking/7  said.M. 
Berioist  d'Azy,  in  1844.  "  It  has  often  been  told  the  colo 
nies,  that  it  would  be  more  prudent  for  them  to  return  to 
the  culture  of  coffee,  cotton,  and  indigo,  which  find  no  ri 
valry  on  French  soil,  and  which,  perha^,  will  be  better 
suited  to  the  coming  condition  of  the  population.  These 
counsels  have  not  been  followed."  A  most  grievous  result, 
especially  as  it  concerns  coffee  ;  for  it  is  well  known  that  the 
culture  of  this  little  shrub,  transported  from  Persia  or  Ara 
bia,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  Java,  and 
afterwards  to  Surinam  and  the  Antilles,  exacts  less  labor, 
less  capital,  and  a  less  fertile  soil  than  the  culture  of  the 
sugar-cane  ;  that,  once  in  full  bearing,  after  three  or  four 
years  the  coffee  shrub,  if  the  victim  of  no  insect,  lasts  fif 
teen  years  and  more,  and  bears  in  abundance  the  berry 
which  comes  to  us  rid  of  its  outer  envelope,  keeps,  improves 
with  age,  and  gives  us  an  exquisite,  and  at  the  same  time 
healthful  drink,  if  we  are  to  believe  chemistry,  which  af 
firms  that  a  quart  composed  of  equal  parts  of  milk  and 
coffee  represents  five  times  as  much  solid  substance  and 
three  times  as  much  azote  substances  as  the  same  quantity 
of  soup.* 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1853,  article  translated  from  the  Tropical  Agriculturist,  pp 
410.447. 


COFFEE,   COCOA,  TEA.  199 

It  is  also  known  that  the  consumption  of  coffee  has  as 
sumed  an  enormous  growth.  England  consumes  forty  times 
as  much  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  Brazil,  where 
coffee  was  not  introduced  until  1774,  now  produces 
173,000,000  kilogrammes  of  the  338,000,000  which  repre 
sent  the  total  production  of  the  globe.  The  consumption 
is,  in  Belgium  and  Holland,  4  kilog.  per  head ;  in  the 
United  States,  2  kilog.  445  gr.  ;  in  the  Zollverein,  1  kilog. 
600  gr.  ;  in  England,  6  kilog.  40  gr.  ;  and  in  France,  but 
750  gr.  per  head. 

Of  35,415,000  kilog.  imported  in  1847,  our  colonies 
furnished  us  but  1,274,000  kilog.,  while  Brazil  sent  us 
10,123,000  kilog.,  Hayti,  7,108,000,  Cuba  and  Porto  Kico, 
5,057,000,  etc.,  etc.  The  amount  fell  to  728,000  kilog.  in 
1848.  It  rose  again  to  nearly  1,000,000  kilog.  in  1857, 
in  the  three  colonies  of  Martinico,  Guadaloupe,  and  Bour 
bon,  without  including  Guiana.* 

Coffee  has  not  nor  can  have  an  indigenous  rival  like 
sugar. f  For  this  reason  little  attention  was  paid  to  it,  and 
the  duty  which  burdened  it  was  not  once  changed  until 
lately  from  the  tariff  at  which  it  was  fixed  in  1816.  At 
this  epoch,  coffee  was  worth  300  fr.  the  100  kilog. ;  to-day, 
it  is  worth  about  60  fr.  The  duty  nevertheless  remained 
60  fr.  on  colonial  coffees,  95  fr.  on  foreign  coffees  imported 
by  French  vessels.  Equal  to  the  value  of  the  commodity, 
it  did  not  stimulate  the  colonies ;  higher  than  that  of  foreign 
coffees,  it  did  not  hinder  their  importation  ;  it  only  threw 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  greater  fall  of  price,  and  con 
sequently  of  an  extension  of  consumption.  The  law  of 
1860  has  reduced  the  duty  one  half,  from  60  fr.  to  30  fr., 
and  from  95  fr.  to  42  fr.  ;  the  colonies  and  foreign  countries 

*  Formerly,  St.  Domingo  alone  exported  37,000,000  kilog.  of  coffee. 

|  "  Chicory  cannot  be  honored  with  this  name,  though  it  is  pretended  that 
from  4,000,000  to  5,000,000  kilog.  of  chicory  coffee  are  sold  annually,  —  a  mix 
ture  of  coffee,  chicory,  burnt  roots,  pulp  of  the  beet-root,  and  often  earth  or 
clay."  Report  of  M.  Beugnot,  1843. 


200  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

will  produce  more  ;  the  shipping,  which  already  employs 
34,000  tons  in  the  service  of  foreign  coffee,  the  principal 
resource,  after  sugar,  of  our  distant  navigation,  will  see  its 
transportation  increase  ;  the  treasury  will  recuperate  its 
sacrifices  (one  half  our  28,000,000  fr.  collected  in  1858), 
if,  as  is  probable,  so  sudden  a  fall,  decreasing  the  price  of 
coffee  32  centimes  per  pound,  popularizes  this  excellent 
production,  already  widely  diffused  by  the  habits  of  our 
soldiers  of  the  Crimea  and  Italy.  This  reduction  is  com 
bined  with  that  of  the  price  of  sugar ;  both  concur  in  the 
same  end,  as  1  kilogramme  of  coffee  consumed  causes  the 
consumption  of  6  or  *7  kilogrammes  of  sugar. 

The  same  law  diminishes  one  half  the  duties  on  cocoa, 
which  formerly  amounted  to  30  per  cent  of  the  value  of  the 
commodity.*  It  also  aids  in  the  consumption  of  sugar, 
which  is  mingled  with  the  cocoa  in  nearly  equal  parts  in 
the  manufacture  of  chocolate.  It  gratifies  an  indisputable 
desire  for  consumption,  since,  despite  the  high  duties,  the 
importation  of  cocoa  into  France,  which  did  not  exceed 
2,008,000  kilog.  in  1830,  amounted  to  4,091,000  kilog.  in 
1859.  It  may  be  hoped  that  this  large  reduction  will  re 
store  this  culture  to  favor  in  our  colonies,  where  it  is  now 
unimportant,  having  been  sacrificed  like  that  of  coffee  to 
the  production  of  sugar.  Doubtless  the  West  Indian  cocoa 
has  not  the  reputation  of  that  of  Martinico  or  Maracaybo. 
Doubtless,  too,  the  preparation  of  a  cocoa  plantation  de 
mands  six  or  eight  years  ;  but  after  this  first  labor,  it  lasts 
fifty  years  on  the  sea-coast  and  thirty  years  in  the  interior, 
and  the  owner  can  walk  under  the  shade  of  his  trees,  analo 
gous  to  our  cherry-trees,  with  no  other  trouble  than  that  of 
seeing  that  they  are  watered.  The  culture  is  very  easy, 

*  By  French  ships    ....     Colonies  20  fr.  per  100  kil. 

"...         .        Elsewhere  25       "          " 

.        .  Entrepots  35      "          " 

By  foreign  ships         .        ...         .        .  40       "          " 


COFFEE,  COCOA,  TEA.  201 

since  the  Mexicans  had  no  difficulty  in  cultivating  the  cocoa- 
tree,  abandoned  at  the  moment  of  the  Spanish  conquest,  the 
seeds  of  which  they  used  as  money  ;  while  the  savage  tribes 
of  America,  according  to  Humboldt,  throw  them  away,  and 
suck  the  acid  pulp  which  surrounds  them.  This  culture 
has,  above  all,  the  advantage  of  requiring  little  labor,  and 
also  of  being  suited  to  small  families.  One  man  is  suffi 
cient  to  take  care  of  one  thousand  trees,  which  yield  1,320 
pounds  of  cocoa  in  average  years. 

The  colonies  reap  no  direct  profit  on  the  duty  on  teas, 
reduced  by  the  law  of  May  23,  1860,  from  120  fr.  on  teas  im 
ported  from  China  or  Manilla,  and  150  fr.  on  all  others,  to  a 
uniform  rate  of  75  fr.,  with  the  exception  of  an  extra  charge, 
diminishing  according  to  the  production  and  flag,  until  1866. 
Even  though  the  soil  were  suited  to  the  culture  of  the  tea- 
shrub,  how  could  it  be  disputed  with  the  vast  empire  of 
China,  which  consumes  it  in  so  great  quantity  that,  it  is 
said,  if  the  consumption  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world  were 
suppressed,  the  price  would  not  decrease  there,  and  which 
pays  its  wretched  laborers  but  five  or  six  pence  a  day  ?  But 
the  production  of  colonial  sugar  will  profit  by  this  reduc 
tion,  for  the  consumption  of  this  leaf  of  a  sort  of  small 
orange-tree,  unknown  in  Europe  two  hundred  years  ago, 
has  already  become  popular  to  an  almost  incredible  degree. 
In  England,  it  amounted  to  13,601,109  kilog.  in  1831,  to 
more  than  25,000,000  kilog.  in  1859,  and  brings  no  less  than 
140,000,000  fr.  into  the  Treasury.  The  French  show  the 
same  slowness  in  taking  from  the  English  their  teas,  as  from 
the  Hollanders  their  coffee,  and  from  the  Spanish  their  choco 
late  ;  we  decidedly  prefer  our  wine.*  Nevertheless,  the  im 
portation  of  tea  has  risen  from  92,500  kilogrammes  in  1850  to 
283,570  in  1859.  It  is  still  an  article  of  luxury,  like  cocoa, 
but  was  not  sugar  also  an  article  of  luxury  fifty  years  ago  ? 

*  Annals  of  the  Agricultural  Society  at  Martinico,  Tom.  II.  p.  474,  quoted  by 
the  Revue  coloniale,  1853,  p.  98. 
9* 


CHAPTER    XII. 

LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION. 

THE  reduction  of  the  impost  on  colonial  products  is  not 
the  only  remedy  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  the  colonies. 
A  large  immigration  is  earnestly  solicited  ;  there  is  need  of 
new  laborers,  it  is  said,  because  the  old  ones  will  no  longer 
work,  because  the  abolition  of  slavery  has  been  the  aboli 
tion  of  labor. 

This  question  merits  the  most  attentive  examination. 

We  briefly  style  immigration  the  contract  for  free  laborers 
or  immigrants  in  divers  countries,  their  transportation  to  the 
colonies,  and  their  engagement  for  a  term  of  years  for  agri 
cultural  labor.  This  operation  is  costly  and  complicated, 
but  before  all  it  raises  many  scruples. 

Can  the  contract  be  made,  at  the  starting-point,  with  pre 
cautions  sufficient  to  insure  clearly  the  consent  of  the  con 
tracting  party  ?  In  offering  employment  to  a  numerous 
population,  does  it  not  encourage  the  petty  covetous  and 
ferocious  sovereigns  of  thickly  peopled  countries  to  make 
war,  take  captives,  and  resort  to  inhuman  measures  in  order 
to  procure  this  advantageous  commodity  ? 

Is  not  the  transportation  difficult  to  watch  over,  difficult 
to  distinguish  from  that  of  the  slave-traders,  to  whom  it 
also  offers  another  means  of  accomplishing  their  ends  in 
disguise  ? 

If  this  spring  be  imprudently  opened,  wifl  the  waters 
that  escape  from  it  be  pure  ?  Will  not  the  colonies,  if  in 
haste  to  receive  laborers,  have  erelong  to  mourn  for  having 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  203 

introduced  on  the  soil,  in  the  midst  of  their  families,  an  in 
ferior,  ignorant,  and  heathen  population  ? 

Thus,  at  the  departure,  during  the  voyage,  and  after  the 
arrival,  —  three  perils,  —  arise  three  questions,  questions 
of  supreme  importance,  the  solution  of  which  makes  of  the 
same  thing  a  crime  or  a  benefit,  a  pollution  or  a  progress,  a 
future  of  life  or  of  death. 

The  question  of  immigration  thus  touches,  on  the  one 
side,  the  slave-trade,  and,  on  the  other,  the  question  of 
labor  and  good  order  in  the  colonies.  The  latter  only  we 
shall  examine  here. 

Good  or  evil,  has  not  immigration  become  a  necessity 
since  the  abolition  of  slavery  ?  Is  it  not  the  proof  and  re 
sult  of  the  repugnance  manifested  by  the  former  slaves  to 
labor  ?  This  is  daily  repeated,  and  in  terms  which  seem  ir 
refutable,  because  in  appearance  nothing  is  more  specious. 
Why  is  there  need  of  a  multitude  of  new  laborers  ?  Because 
it  is  no  longer  possible  to  count  on  the  old  ones. 

Such  an  affirmation  proves  great  ignorance  of  the  history 
of  our  colonies,  or  rather  of  all  colonies. 

I.  Immigration  is  not  a  result  of  emancipation,  but  of 
slavery. 

From  all  time,  the  colonies  have  complained  of  the  lack 
of  labor  ;  a  very  natural  complaint,  so  long  as  a  portion  of 
these  fertile  and  vast  territories  remained  unworked.  We 
know  that  in  our  four  principal  colonies  more  than  half  the 
soil  remains  waste. 

In  Martinico,  163,351  acres  out  of  244,491. 

In  Guadaloupe,  217,564  acres  out  of  346,451. 

In  Bourbon,*  394,839  acres  out  of  620,996. 

In  Guiana,  of  about  138,650,000  acres,  but  14,241  acres 
are  cultivated. 

Nevertheless,  the  colonies  have  received  an  enormous  in- 

*  It  must  be  remarked  that  at  Bourbon  a  large  portion  of  the  uncultivated 
land  is  not  susceptible  of  cultivation. 


204  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

crease  of  laborers.  The  number  of  Africans  brought  thither 
during  two  centuries  of  the  slave-trade  is  computed  at  sev 
eral  millions.  The  number  of  Africans  sold  in  the  different 
slave  countries  from  1788  to  1848  is  estimated  at  not  less 
than  from  100,000  to  150,000  per  year.  What  cities  have 
these  men  built  ?  What  countries  have  they  civilized  ? 
What  forests,  what  savannas,  have  they  cleared  ?  Where 
do  they  live  happy,  instructed,  Christian,  progressing  ?  At 
least,  what  descendants,  what  family,  what  population, 
have  they  formed? 

One  half  of  these  human  beings  died  on  the  voyage  or 
during  the  first  year's  labor.  Moreover,  it  is  proved  that 
the  deaths  outnumbered  the  births  by  reason  of  the  dispro 
portion  of  the  sexes,  and  that,  while  freedom  and  prosperity 
multiply  races,  slavery  subjects  them  to  a  continual  and 
rapid  decrease. 

It  may  be  added,  that,  through  his  obsolete  and  miserable 
routine  of  culture,  the  colonial  agriculturist  multiplied  his 
hands  in  vain.* 

Thus  the  demand  for  hands  in  all  the  colonies  has  always 
had  three  causes,  —  the  disproportion  between  the  territory 
and  population,  the  diminution  of  the  laboring  class  under 
the  system  of  slavery,  and  the  bad  system  of  cultivation  en 
gendered  by  slavery. 

Before  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  hands  were  already 
lacking ;  the  slave-traders  brought  but  few,  to  keep  up  the 
price. f 

After  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  the  need  of  new 
laborers  was  naturally  more  felt  ;  at  the  same  time  the  com- 

*  "  Why  do  you  leave  half  your  lands  fallow?  "  was  asked  of  the  overseer  of 
a  plantation.  "  Because  we  lack  hands."  "  That  is,  you  lack  a  harrow,  a 
horse-hoe,  a  double  plough,  and  a  little  strength  of  will  to  make  your  slaves 
use  these  instruments,  which  cost  250  fr.  in  France."  For  three  years  tho 
overseer  had  been  writing  to  the  proprietors  in  France  for  a  harrow.  (Revue 
coloniale,  1847,  p.  170.) 

f  Notices  (^fficielks,  1840,  p.  138. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  205 

fort  of  the  slaves  was  somewhat  increased,  as  each  master 
had  a  little  more  interest  in  taking  care  of  an  implement  dif 
ficult  to  replace. 

The  colonies  of  all  countries  have  not  ceased  for  a  single 
day  to  seek  the  means  of  procuring  new  laborers  without 
having  recourse  to  the  slave-trade.  On  the  other  hand,  ex 
cess  of  population  or  excess  of  misery  urges  the  people  of 
certain  countries  to  flee  a  soil  where  they  have  received 
wretchedness  with  birth  ;  the  spirit  of  adventure  and  desire 
of  gain  attracts  other  nations  from  home.  The  negroes, 
captured  or  hunted  like  flocks,  repair  every  year  to  the 
eastern  or  western  coast  of  Africa.  The  Philippine  Isles, 
the  Dutch  East  India  Islands,  the  peninsula  of  Malacca, 
Siam,  and  Cochin  China,  overflow  with  Chinamen.  They 
are  also  found  at  the  remote  points  of  the  globe,  at  the 
Cape,  in  Guiana,  but  in  far  the  greatest  numbers  in  Califor 
nia  and  Australia.  Multitudes  of  Indian  laborers,  known  by 
the  name  of  Hill  Coolies,  descend  to  the  principal  towns 
of  the  coast  to  procure  occupation  there. 

It  is  natural,  and  doubtless  conformable  to  the  mysterious 
laws  of  Providence,  that  a  current  should  be  established, 
when  distance  does  not  render  it  too  costly,  between  these 
races  which  are  seeking  labor  and  these  lands  which  aro 
awaiting  it. 

On  the  18th  of  January,  1826,  an  order  of  the  Governor 
of  Bourbon  provided  regulations  for  the  introduction  of  East 
Indians,  and  before  1830,  3,012  were  already  introduced 
there.  In  1843,  another  order  provided  for  the  introduc 
tion  of  1,000  Chinamen.*  In  the  Isle  of  Mauritius,  neigh 
boring  to  Bourbon,  the  Indians  were  imported  for  the  first 
time  in  1834  ;  and  from  1834  to  1839,  more  than  25,000  were 
brought  thither  by  private  speculation.  The  immigration 
was  interdicted,  then  authorized  anew,  and  46,000  were  in 
troduced  in  1843.  The  African  immigration,  demanded  by 

*  Memorial  of  M.  Challaye.     (Revue  coloniale,  1844,  Tom.  III.  p.  552.) 


20G  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

the  English  colonies  in  1842,  and  authorized  with  restric 
tions  in  1843,  then  more  largely  in  1841,  despatched  numer 
ous  laborers  to  Guiana,  Jamaica,  and  Trinidad.  A  law  was 
proposed  by  the  French  government,  April  22,  1845,  to  de 
vote  600,000  fr.  to  the  introduction  of  European  laborers 
into  the  West  Indies.  The  statement  of  the  reasons  veri 
fies  and  defines  the  position  which  we  wish  to  sketch. 

"The  advantage  which  a  few  of  the  planters  of  Guada- 
loupe  and  Martinico  have  already  derived  from  the  intro 
duction  of  European  laborers  on  their  plantations,  indicates 
that  the  first  attempts  should  be  made  in  this  direction, 
Without  excluding  from  the  scheme  French  Guiana  and  the 
Isle  of  Bourbon,  we  must  acknowledge  that  these  two  colo 
nies  are  found  in  conditions  which  imperatively  demand 
another  mode  of  immediate  assistance.  At  Guiana,  the 
population  is  sensibly  decreasing,  hands  are  lacking,  estates 
formerly  cultivated  are  left  in  a  state  of  almost  complete 

ruin At  Bourbon,  the  births  no  longer  keep  pace 

with  the  deaths,  and  the  progressive  movement  which  has 
been  manifested  for  a  few  years  in  cultivation,  daily  proves 
the  insufficiency  of  the  working  population.  But  the  geo 
graphical  position  of  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  places  it  within 
reach  of  the  labor  which  it  lacks.  It  has  already  taken  the 
initiative,  in  1828,  in  procuring  hired  Indians More  re 
cently,  again,  regulations  have  been  made  for  the  introduc 
tion  of  a  thousand  Chinamen.  These  immigrations  may  be 
extended.  Instructions  have  been  given  in  this  direction.7'* 

Thus,  twenty  years  before  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
European,  African,  Chinese,  and  Indian  immigration  had 
been  essayed  or  solicited  by  the  colonies  of  all  nations  ;  it 
has  not  been  an  invention  of  emancipation. 

II.  Is  it  true  that,  since  tfiis  emancipation,  it  has  become 
absolutely  indispensable  ?  Is  it  true  that  labor  has  almost 
entirely  ceased  ? 

*  Revue  colonial?,  1845,  p.  436. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  207 

One  of  the  best  informed  and  most  able  writers  among 
those  that  occupy  themselves  with  colonial  questions,  M. 
Jules  Duval,  wrote,  December  1,  1859  *  :  — 

"  The  great  matter  of  emigration  is  beginning  to  be  set 
tled.  On  condition  of  taking  no  account  of  the  former  slaves 
and  their  descendants,  who,  abandoned  to  themselves,  with 
out  the  paternal  solicitude  of  their  former  masters,  fall  back 
into  savage  life,  the  solution  seems  found. " 

In  a  more  recent  and  more  profound  work,f  devoted 
solely  to  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  the  same  writer  thus  ex 
presses  himself :  — 

"  Of  about  sixty  thousand  slaves  freed  in  1848,  it  is  esti 
mated  that  not  more  than  one  fourth  are  attached  to  any 
plantation.77 

This  opinion  sums  up  the  most  wide-spread  assertions. 
The  necessity  of  two  special  laws,  the  decrees  of  February 
13  and  March  21,  1852,  on  the  labor  police,  vagrancy,  and 
immigration,  followed  by  numerous  and  severe  measures  by 
the  Governors,  is  often  also  alleged  as  a  proof  of  the  diffi 
culty  of  obtaining  regular  labor  from  the  former  slaves.  J 

It  is  very  natural  that  minute  and  severe  measures  should 
have  been  needed  to  prevent  th*abuse  of  a  wholly  new  con 
dition  ;  it  was  at  the  same  epoch  that  a  law  was  made  in 
France  subjecting  workmen  to  the  obligation  of  the  Iwret. 
It  is  forgotten  that,  from  all  time,  the  colonial  governors 
had  been  obliged  to  impose  bounds  on  vagrancy,  in  a  coun 
try  where  half  the  lands  are  unoccupied,  as  well  as  rules 
respecting  change  of  residence  and  permits  of  sojourn,  on  a 
soil  where  so  many  distinct  races  were  landing,  embarking, 
and  mingling  together  pell-mell. 

*  Journal  des  Debats. 

t  La  Colonie  de  la  Reunion.     Revue  des  Deux-Mondes,  April  15,  1860,  p.  862. 

t  Bourbon:  Orders  of  Oct.  24,  1748,  Dec.  23,  1848,  May  24  and  June  13, 1849, 
July  7  and  Sept.  18,  1852;  Circular  of  Sept,  21,  1852.  Guadaloupe:  Order  in 
147  Articles  of  Dec.  2,  1857.  Martinico:  Order  in  88  Articles  of  Sept.  10,  1855. 
This  last  order,  due  to  Admiral  de  Gueydon,  is  admitted  to  have  exercised  a 
most  beneficial  influence. 


208  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

It  is  also  forgotten  that  the  decree  of  February  13,  1852, 
only  gives  a  stricter  definition  to  vagrancy,*  but  purely  and 
simply  refers  the  penalty  to  the  penal  code  (Art.  18),  abro 
gating  the  special  rules  of  the  decree  of  April  27,  1848. 

It  is  forgotten,  lastly,  that  one  of  the  causes  of  the  aver 
sion  of  the  freed  slaves  for  .large  estates  has  been  precisely 
the  severity  "of  the  measures  taken  to  bring  them  back  to 
them,  —  the  Imrets,  engagements,  etc.  To  the  law  that 
said,  "  The  laborer  is  free ,"  regulations  have  added,  "  The 
labor  is  compulsory."  It  will  be  admitted  that  the  shade  of 
difference  was  not  easy  of  comprehension  to  the  newly  freed 
men.  Escaped  from  constraint,  they  distrusted  all  that  re 
sembled  it. 

But  is  it  correct  that  the  labor  of  the  former  slaves  and 
their  descendants  is  no  longer  to  be  taken  into  account,  or  that 
scarcely  one  fourth  remain  attached  to  the  plantations  f 

If  we  speak  of  the  first  years,  this  result  is  true,  at  least 
in  part. 

Here  is  an  impartial  witness  :  - 

"In  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  the  new  citizens  accomplished 
scrupulously,  and  without  stirring  from  their  respective 
glebes,  an  engagement  of  firee  labor  which  they  had  been 
obliged  to  contract  before  the  promulgation  of  the  new  de 
cree.  In  the  West  Indies, even  on  the  few  planta 
tions  which  were  not  completely  disorganized,  there  was  a 
marked  impulse  of  change  of  place  and  dispersion.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  negroes  were  feeling  themselves  to  be  fully 
convinced  that  this  freedom  at  length  proclaimed  was  not 
an  illusion.  They  passed  continually  from  one  plantation 
to  another."  • 

Notwithstanding,  it  must  be  said  that,  even  in  these  first 


*  Art.  16.  Vagrants,  or  unacknowledged  persons,  are  those  who,  having  no 
means  of  subsistence  and  habitually  exercising  neither  trade  nor  profession, 
do  not  give  proof  of  habitual  labor  by  an  engagement  for  a  year  at  lease,  or  by 
their  livrel. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  209 

days  of  intoxication,  there  was,  properly  speaking,  no  ces 
sation  of  labor.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  harvest  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  large  quantities  of  the  sugar-cane,  already  cut, 
had  remained  for  some  days  in  the  mill  under  process  of  fer 
mentation.  Almost  all  the  planters  succeeded  in  making 
their  hands  understand  that  it  was  necessary  to  begin  by 
putting  to  mill,  after  which  they  could  rejoice  with  full  hearts 
over  the  freedom  proclaimed."  * 

The  years  1849  and  1850  were  much  more  calamitous 
than  1848.  We  have  seen  that  the  diminntion  of  labor  dur 
ing  these  years  should  be  attributed  in  great  part  to  political 
excitement ;  but  it  is  perfectly  true  that  it  was  also  among 
the  first  effects  of  emancipation. 

This  was  natural.  What  prisoner  does  not  escape  when 
his  prison  door  is  broken  ?  What  bird  does  not  take  flight 
when  his  cage  is  opened  ?  What !  we  expect  of  an  igno 
rant,  wretched  being,  less  intelligent  than  a  gamin  of  Paris, 
less  virtuous  than  a  Regulus,  what  none  of  those  who  speak 
or  write  on  these  subjects  would  assuredly  have  done  !  We 
expect  of  him  to  make  his  freedom  consist  in  resuming,  un 
der  another  title  purely  ideal,  the  same  tool,  in  the  same 
place,  under  the  same  authority,  to  content  himself  with 
changing  name  without  changing  condition,  and  to  receive 
this  precious  boon,  freedom,  the  object  of  all  his  dreams, 
without  endeavoring  to  make  use  of  it ! 

Not  only  was  the  contrary  natural,  but  it  was  foreseen. 
"  The  culture  arid  preparation  of  colonial  commodities  have 
always  been  a  labor  left  exclusively  to  the  hands  of  slaves. 
For  this  reason  alone,  this  labor  has  become  in  their  eyes 
the  very  token  of  slavery.  Doubtless,  one  of  the  first  uses 
that  the  negroes  will  make  of  their  freedom  will  be  to  ab 
stract  themselves  from  this  kind  of  labor. "f  This  extract 
from  a  report  of  M.  d'Haussonville,  and  the  foresight  which 

*  Lepelletier  de  Saint-Remy,  Les  Colonies  depuis  V  abolition  de  Vesclavage. 
t  Moniteur,  May  24,  1845,  p.  1478. 


210  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

it  expresses,  will  be  also  found  in  all  the  reports  devoted  to 
colonial  questions  for  fifteen  years  before  emancipation. 

Let  it  not  be  said,  therefore,  that  it  is  emancipation  that 
has  caused  culture  to  be  shunned ;  — it  is  the  horror  of 
slavery,  it  is  the  spectacle  of  the  idleness  of  the  whites. 
Slavery  and  labor,  sloth  and  freedom,  —  these  words  were 
synonymous  in  the  colonies,  and  the  phrases,  to  work  like  a 
negro,  beaten  like  a  negro,  slothful  as  a  Creole,  had  become 
proverbs.  If  it  is  freedom  that  has  made  them  flee  labor, 
it  is  slavery  that  rfas  made  them  detest  it. 

There  is  reason  to  be  surprised,  not  that  the  former  slaves 
deserted  their  labor,  but  that  they  returned  to  it. 

Now  they  have  returned  to  it  in  great  numbers,  and, 
without  entering  into  the  details  of  multitudinous  corre 
spondence  carried  on  regarding  this  between  the  colonies 
and  the  government,  here  are  two  incontestable  proofs 
of  it. 

At  Martinico,  according  to  the  notices  published  by  the 
government  in  1858,*  the  number  of  laborers  employed  in 
cultivation  is  48,970.  The  indemnity  was  accorded  for 
56,556  slaves,  of  whom  one  third  at  least  were  infirm  per 
sons,  women,  and  children,  f 

*  It  is  not  exactly  clear  Avho  the  notices  style  laborers ;  whether  they  are 
only  those  who  work  continuously  on  the  same  plantation,  or  also  those  who 
hire  by  the  day  here  and  there,  as  in  France.  The  statistics  of  these  notices 
appear  inexact;  for  they  indicate  a  diminution  of  30  per  cent  at  Martinico  in 
the  number  of  laborers  from  1847  to  1856,  and  of  13  per  cent  only  for  Guada- 
loupe.  Now,  Guadaloupe  has  produced  less  than  Martinico.  This  is  impossi 
ble.  We  will  take  the  figures,  however,  as  they  are  given  us.  The  abstract  is 
as  follows :  — 

1835     .        .     181,758  slaves.  1857    .        .     179,015  laborers. 

t  Declarations  des  dc'legues  des  Colonies  devant  la  Commission  Parlementaire, 
July  10,  1839,  proces-verbaux,  p.  418. 

Delegate  from  Guadaloupe, :  Scarcely  two  thirds  of  the  slaves  labor  effectively. 

Delegate  from  Martinico :  My  opinion  is  the  same. 

Delegate  from  Guiana :  Of  two  hundred  blacks,  from  sixty  to  seventy  labor 
ers  may  be  counted. 

Delegate  from  Bourbon :  Of  three  hundred  slaves,  there  are  about  two  hun 
dred  laborers. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  211 

Who,  then,  form  the  present  contingent  of  laborers  ?  Im 
migrants  ?  In  ten  years,  1848-1851,  but  4,578  were  in 
troduced  into  "Martinico.  The  great  majority  must  be, 
therefore,  the  former  slaves,  unless  they  may  be  the  former 
masters. 

At  Guadaloupe,*  the  number  of  laborers  was  51,660  ;  the 
indemnity  was  computed  on  55,416  slaves.  Now,  before 
1856,  but  1800  immigrants  were  introduced  ;  the  former 
slaves  and  their  children  are  not  therefore  idle. 

At  Guiana, f  7,291  laborers  ;  indemnity  had  been  accorded 
for  13,727  slaves  ;  there  were  1,312  immigrants,  the  result 
is  not  so  good,  but  far  from  void. 

At  Bourbon,  the  number  of  hired  laborers  has  been  in 
comparably  greater.  Since  1852,  it  has  been  about  7,000 
a  year,  amounting  in  1856  to  50,227,  and  in  1857  to 
53,000;J  that  is,  nearly  to  the  number  of  the  former 
slaves,  56,059.  But  of  these  53,000  hired  men,  a  number 
bitve  died  or  returned  ;  as  in  the  56,000  slaves,  at  least  one 
third  may  be  counted  as  women,  children,  and  infirm  ;  there 
are  therefore  about  35,000  able-bodied  slaves,  to  which  may 
be  added,  up  to  1856,  about  40,000  hired  laborers  ;  now  at 
this  epoch,  the  number  of  workmen  indicated  by  the  official 
notice  is  71,094. § 

There  is  another  manner  of  measuring  labor,  —  by  the 
amount  of  product. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  cultivation  of  the 
sugar-cane,  from  the  time  of  planting  to  that  of  maturity, 
demands  from  sixteen  to  eighteen  months,  and  that  the 
immigrants  need  acclimation.  The  product  of  their  labor 
does  not  commence,  therefore,  until  about  two  years  after 
their  arrival.  Now  in  the  Antilles,  East  Indian  immigra 
tion  commenced  at  the  close  of  1854,  and  African  immi 
gration  not  till  1857  ;  the  latter  has  only  been  considerable 

*  Ibid,  p.  28.  f  P.  42. 

t  M.  Duval,  Revue  des  Deux-Mondes,  p.  868,  1860.  §  P.  55. 


212 


THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 


since  1855  at  Bourbon,  where  that  of  the  East  Indians  re 
mains  stationary,  as  is  proved  by  the  following  table,  for 
which  I  am  indebted  to  the  Colonial  Direction. 


MARTINICO. 

East  Indians.        Madeirians. 


Africans. 


June  30,  1854 

889               58 

.... 

Dec.  31,  1854 

1,247               60 

.... 

«        1855 

1,563               34 

.... 

"        1856 

2,987                33 

.... 

"         1857 

4,037 

541 

«         1858 

5,279 

1,248 

"        1859 

6,748 

2,976 

GUADALOUPE. 

Numerical 

Position  of  Laborers  in 

tlie  Colony. 

East  Indians.         Chinamen, 

Africans. 

June  30,       1854 

.    . 

December,    1854 

314 

.    . 

"            1855 

691                  .  . 

January,      1856 

1,646 

December,  1857 

2,884 

6-9 

"            1858 

3,989                 .  . 

1,138 

November,  1859 

4,155                184 

2,995 

Total.* 
1,234 
1,594 
2,885 
3,307 
4,578 
6,527 
10,256 


Total.f 

189 

495 

855 

1,790* 

3,094 

5,264 

7,334 


BOUEBOX. 

Numerical  Position  of  Foreign  Laborers  in  the  Colony. 


East  Indians. 


Africans. 


Total.J 


December,  1854 

»  1855 

"  1856 

"  1857 

"  1858 

"  1859 


It  is  only  since  1857  and  1858,  therefore,  that  the  pres- 

*  Including  a  few  hundred  Europeans  and  laborers  from  the  English  colonies, 
and  500  Chinamen,  arrived  in  1859. 
f  Including  a  few  Europeans. 
J  Including  a  few  Chinamen. 


34,461 

6,366 

41,287 

35,201 

10,265 

45,914 

36,071 

13,701 

50,227 

36,144 

16,580 

53,175 

36,251 

24,143 

60,839 

36,025 

25,636 

62,104 

LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  213 

ence  of  the  immigrants  has  had  power  to  exert  an  apprecia 
ble  influence  on  the  value  of  the  products.  Now  we  have 
seen  that  the  product  of  the  years  subsequent  to  slavery, 
after  five  inferior  years,  rose,  during  the  following  quin 
quennial  period,  above  the  product  of  the  years  anterior  to 
slavery.  Let  us  refer  again  to  the  statistics. 

AGGREGATE  OF  COMMERCE. 

1843-1847.  1852-1857. 

Martinico      .         .         .     39,226,503  fr.  51,646,959  fr. 

Guadaloupe       .         .         39,228,912  39,904,671 
Guiana          •                         4,081,799  7,954,376 

Bourbon    .         .         .         33,074,648  72,324,705 

To  be  still  more  precise,  we  will  compare%nly  the  statis 
tics  of  exportations  ten  years  distant. 

1847.  1S57. 

Martinico      .         .         .     18,323,921  h.  24,830,093  li. 

Guadaloupe       .         .         20,420,522  23,319,277 
Guiana          .         .         .       1,622,919  961,272 

Bourbon   .         .         .         12,620,602  33,130,125 

Except  at  Guiana,  where  immigration  is  also  almost  void, 
the  product  has  been  everywhere  higher.  Now  at  Marti 
nico  and  Guadaloupe,  the  number  of  immigrants  before  this 
epoch  was  insignificant ;  the  product  was  therefore  almost 
wholly  the  result  of  the  labor  of  the  former  slaves.  At 
Bourbon,  we  will  admit  the  hired  men  to  have  doubled  the 
number  of  laborers  ;  but  the  product  has  tripled,  —  the 
former  slaves  count  for  something  in  it,  therefore,  without 
forgetting  machinery. 

It  is  objected,  that  the  number  of  acres  under  cultivation 
has  diminished  in  three  colonies. 

1846.  1856. 

Martinico       .      .....         .       85,257  acres  78,253  acres 

Guadaloupe        .         .        .         108,163  58,844 

Guiana 21,766  14,161 

Bourbon     ....         152,140  227,209 


214  THE   FKENCH   COLONIES. 

We  see  that  the  extent  of  culture  has  diminished  in  the 
colonies,  except  at  Bourbon  ;  especially  at  Guadaloupe  and 
Guiana,  where  it  has  fallen  off  nearly  half,  although  the 
amount  of  the  products  has  been  increased. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  escape  from  this  dilemma.  Since 
the  products  of  the  labor  have  increased,  either  the  greater 
part  of  the  slaves  have  worked,  —  in  which  case  it  is  unjust 
to  accuse  emancipation  of  having  killed  labor ;  or  else  the 
number  of  laborers  has  diminished,  —  in  which  case  less 
hands  have  sufficed  for  more  products,  which  is  the  best 
proof  of  the  superiority  of  free  labor  over  slave  labor. 

It  must  therefore  be  concluded,  that  free  labor  is  more 
productive  than  slave  labor,  and  that  better  management 
of  plantations  and  improved  processes  of  cultivation  have 
been  brought  about  by  the  spur  of  necessity.  It  is  evident 
that  the  diminution  of  hands  was  one  of  the  most  important 
advantages  of  all  others  to  realize.  "It  is  surprising/7 
wrote  an  already-cited  observer  in  1859,  "  to  see  hundreds 
of  slaves  and  droves  of  mules  and  oxen  employed  on  a  hun 
dred  acres, and  cultivating  an  estate  which  in  France 

would  be  tilled  by  a  few  farm  servants  and  half  a  dozen 
horses."  Let  no  one  complain,  therefore,  of  the  diminution 
of  hands,  without  remembering  that  they  were  formerly  in 
superabundance,  —  with  fewer,  more  is  produced. 

But  it  must  be  admitted,  at  the  same  time,  that  important 
cultures  have  been  abandoned.  Coffee  has  continued  to  be 
neglected,  perhaps  because  the  soil  is  too  far  exhausted  ; 
but  the  sugar-cane,  to  which  so  much  has  been  sacrificed, 
has  been  in  more  than  one  place  abandoned,  as  I  do  not 
deny.* 

Let  us  directly  remark,  that  this  proceeds  from  three 
causes,  and  not  from  one  alone. 

*  Mark  the  statistics  of  1856,  the  last  year  of  which  they  are  officially  known, 
as  compared  with  those  of  1846.  These  statistics  are  extracted  from  the  Notices 
sur  les  colonies,  by  M.  Ray,  and  from  the  Tableaux  de  population,  de  culture,  de 
commerce,  et  de  navigation,  for  the  year  1856,  published  in  1860,  Nos.  12-17. 


LABOR  AND   IMMIGRATION. 


215 


1.  It  is  not  only  the  negroes  that  flee  the  plantations,  but 
also  the  whites.     Labor  has  been  less  in  demand,  but  also 


Number  of  he 
Sugar-cane  . 
Coffee 

MartLnico. 
1846.               1856. 

sctares  under  cultivation    34,530         31,723 
.     '    .    •'-'•.    20,232  h.     18,202 
V      .        .        .        .          1,856  h.         625 

Guadaloupe. 
184G.            1856. 
44,813       23,876 
14,189       22,349 
4,736         2,206 
1,139            656 
134            122 
10            311 
16,379         6,360 
3,562         3,963 
51,522       51,659f 

3,861         3;385 
892            430 
9,114         4,485 
23,450         8,075 
27,238         8,427 
6,142        8,057 
9,023         9,331J 

159  h. 

47 
423 
345 
12,081 
4,748 
43,794 
62 
2,954 
205 
4,460 
15,094 
11,145 
3,644 
9,249 

Cocoa 
Tobacco 
Provisions 

592  h. 

19  h. 
11,672 
3,256 

Workmen 
Machines     . 
Horses 

65,228* 
28 
2,293 
152 

Mules 
Cattle  . 

5,483 
16,661 

Sheep 

13,578 

Goats    . 
Hogs 

1,388 
3,902 

*  In  the  report  of  the  table  of  population  (p.  12),  it  is  stated  that  this  number, 
65,228,  includes  the  women,  children,  and  infirm,  while  the  effective  laborers 
number  43,794.  The  same  table  proves  that  the  number  of  children  under  six 
years  old  exceeds  one  third.  Without  speaking  of  women,  if  one  third,  or 
21,742,  be  subtracted  from  65,228,  but  43,000  slaves  remain;  the  exact  number 
of  1846. 

t  For  Guadaloupe  the  deduction  has  been  made.  Now,  the  statistics  of  1846 
and  1856  are  precisely  the  same.  This  makes  it  difficult  to  admit  the  figure  in 
dicated  for  cultures.  How  could  23,000  hectares  employ  as  many  laborers  as 
44,000  ?  The  error  is  confirmed  by  the  amount  of  products..  Would  the  22,000 
hectares  planted  with  cane  in  1856  produce,  in  raw  and  clayed  sugars,  syrup, 
molasses,  and  tafia,  only  31,892,050  fr.,  and  the  11,000  hectares  of  1856  have 
produced  33,912,780  fr.  ?  The  prices  having  generally  fallen,  this  rise  could  not 
be  attributed  to  their  variation. 

J  In  the  sequel  of  the  excellent  report  of  M.  Jules  Duval,  in  behalf  of  the 
special  jury  of  the  colonies  and  Algeria,  at  the  general  exhibition  of  agricul 
ture  in  1860  (Revue  coloniale,  Dec.,  1860),  is  found  a  resume  of  the  statistical 
documents  concerning  the  colonies,  for  1837,  1847,  and  1857,  which  is  full  of 
interest.  But,  although  drawn  from  official  sources,  it  contains  (as  the  author 
takes  care  to  Avarn  us)  more  than  one  hypothesis  and  more  than  one  inaccuracy; 
and  especially  several  figures,  which  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  either  with  each 
other,  with  the  Tableaux  of  1856,  or  with  the  notices  which  serve  us  as  a  guide. 
These  disagreements  are  vexatious,  but  irremediable,  on  account  of  the  imper 
fection  of  the  statistics  sent  by  the  colonies.  See  also  the  Statistique  de  la 
France,  published  in  1860,  by  M.  Maurice  Block,  Tom.  n.  chap.  xx. 


216  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

less  to  be  had.  The  moment  of  the  payment  of  the  indem 
nity  was  that  of  a  general  liquidation. 

I  read  in  a  despatch  of  Vice-Admiral  Fourichon,  Gov 
ernor  of  Guiana  :  — 

"  The  planter  who  was  involved  in  debt  before  emancipa 
tion,  and  who  in  general  sacrificed  his  indemnity  to  satisfy 
his  creditors,  has  been  constrained,  for  want  of  capital  to 
furnish  wages,  to  let  his  old  laborers  go.  From  this  results 
stoppage  of  manufactories  and  decrease  of  works,  canals, 
and  dikes." 

2.  Hands  are  lacking  at  Bourbon,  which  produces  more, 
as  lat  Guiana,  which  produces  less  ;  the  same  effect  must, 
therefore,  ensue  from  two  opposite  causes, — the  diminution 
of  laborers  and  the  increase  of  labor. 

3.  It  is  not  only  in  the   colonies,  but  everywhere,  that, 
under  the  sway  of  an  impulse  more  easy  to  comprehend 
than  to  fetter,  the  working  classes  quit  the  fields  for  the 
towns.     Hands   are  lacking  in  the  environs  of  Paris,  as  in 
the  environs  of  Cayenne  ;  the  labor  of  the  fields  seems  for 
saken  ;  the  amount  of  labor  is  the  same  ;  labor  is  not  de 
stroyed,  it  has  changed  place.    The  petty  urban  branches  of 
trade  and  fishery  thus  receive  numbers   of  former  slaves, 
disgusted  with  the  rude  labor  of  the  fields.     It  is  known 
that  from  all  time  the  mulattoes  and  colored  men,  both  free 
and  freed,  have  preferred  the  trades  to  culture,  and  their 
example  has  naturally  influenced  the  newly  freed  men.     To 
general  reasons  —  the  attraction  of  higher  wages,  the  love 
of  change,  the  desire  for  the  unknown,  the  temptation  of  a 
less  monotonous  life  —  is  joined  in  the  colonies  the  special 
reason  already  given,  —  the  horror  of  their  ancient  condi 
tion  and  the  fear  of  falling  back  into  it,  or,  above  all,  of  see 
ing  their  wives  do  so,  which  is  so   great,  that  the  negroes, 
it  is  everywhere  remarked,  hasten  to  escape  from  the  labor 
of  the  soil ;  then,  lastly,  the  facility  of  possessing  a  little 
freehold  and  supporting  themselves  from  its  profits. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  217 

For  a  double  movement  is  wrought;  the  one  towards 
populous  centres,  the  other  towards  unoccupied  space. 
There,  alone  with  his  family,  the  negro  lives  on  little,  on  a 
soil  fructified  by  the  sun,  and  measures  his  labor  by  his 
needs,  which  are  almost  nothing,  and  his  enjoyments,  which 
are  precisely  idleness  and  a  roving  life.  But  it  is  the  admi 
rable  moral  mechanism  of  freedom,  that  its  duties  support 
and  are  linked  one  with  another  ;  because  he  has  a  famity, 
man  wishes  property, —  to  acquire  it  he  devotes  himself  to 
labor ;  if  he  shuns  labor,  he  is  constrained  to  it  by  priva 
tion  ;  that  this  labor  may  be  advantageous,  he  labors  for 
another,  and  is  thus  brought  back  by  the  desire  of  his  per 
sonal  advantage  to  contribute  to  the  common  good. 

In  a  report  on  English  Guiana,  in  1840,  I  read  that  the 
number  of  negro  freeholders,  including  the  members  of 
their  families,  was  already  15,906  individuals  ;  having  con 
structed  on  their  lands,  at  their  own  expense,  3,322  houses. 
The  report  adds  :  "When  the  peasant  of  Guiana  rises  a 
degree  in  the  social  scale,  and  becomes  the  proprietor  of  a 
little  plot  of  fertile  soil,  there  are  few  conditions  so  worthy 
of  envy  as  his,  few  countries  so  happily  apportioned.  At 
the  sight  of  this  prosperity  of  the  laborers  of  English  Gui 
ana,  one  is  tempted  to  say  of  the  cultivated  part  of  the  col 
ony,  as  Goldsmith  said  of  Old  England  and  its  products, 
'  Each  inch  of  ground  supports  its  man.' ' 

I  do  not  assuredly  pretend  that  this  picture,  drawn  six 
years  after  emancipation,  is  the  portrait  of  our  colonies. 
Let  us  not  hasten  to  believe,  however,  that  emancipation 
has  transformed  all  slaves  into  vagrants  who  have  been 
unwilling  to  cultivate  sugar-cane  ;  a  great  number  do 
other  things,  busy  themselves  in  the  towns,  or  raise  their 
support  from  a  bit  of  ground.  I  repeat  it,  labor  has 
changed  place  rather  than  been  destroyed. 

The  statistics  of  the  customs  transform  this  hypothesis 
into  a  real  fact.  At  Martinico  and  Guadaloupe,  while  the 
10 


218  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

amount  of  sugar  imported  into  France  produced  on  large 
plantations  diminished  after  1848,  almost  all  other  industrial 
or  agricultural  products  increased.  At  Martinico,  rum, 
cocoa,  cassia,  hides,  wood,  and  divers  articles.  At  Guada- 
loupe,  rum,  anotta,  wood,  copper,  hides,  cotton,  and  divers 
articles'. 

Another  thing  attests  the  same  fact.  Where  are  the 
paupers  ?  where  the  mendicants  ?  Emancipation  has  im 
pelled  one  portion  of  the  slaves  towards  the  towns,  another 
towards  the  unoccupied  lands,  very  few  towards  the  prisons 
and  hospitals  ;  it  has  made  artisans  and  small  freeholders, 
some  vagrants,  few  beggars,  and  few  criminals. 

Large  plantations  have  suffered  without  causing  the  en 
tire  community  to  suffer.  But  as  it  is  possible  that  the 
desertion  of  the  cultures,  less  considerable  than  is  affirmed, 
may  still  increase,  and  that  the  scarcity  of  hands  may  raise 
wages,  how  revive  the  large  plantations,  how  triumph, 
without  raising  wages,  over  so  many  causes  of  desertion 
of  the  laborers  ?  A  common  voice  answers,  By  immi 
gration. 

Yes,  immigration  is  necessary,  provisionally,  to  develop 
production  and  diminish  its  expense.  It  is  a  means  of 
lowering  wages  by  the  competition  of  labor,  and  of  dimin 
ishing  the  costs  of  manufacture  by  manufacturing  on  a 
larger  scale. 

Herein  is  the  true  end,  the  true  reason, — to  render  the 
labor  of  the  former  slaves  less  costly,  to  lessen  the  net  cost. 

We  repeat  it,  hands  are  demanded  less  to  replace  the  for 
mer  workmen  than  to  stimulate  them,  to.  lower  wages  and 
to  develop  cultures  ;  not  substitutes,  but  competitors,  are 
sought. 

I  admit  so  evident  a  necessity ;  it  explains  all  the  de 
mands  of  the  colonists,  all  the  efforts  of  the  French  govern 
ment  to  obtain  new  laborers. 

III.    It  is  known  that  the  government  did  not  authorize 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  219 

recruital  on  the  African  coast  until  1852,  and  that  it  reg 
ulated  minutely  all  the  conditions  of  immigration  by  the 
two  decrees  of  March  13  and  27,  1852.* 

A  first  agreement  was  made  between  the  Minister  of  the 
Marine  and  two  shipping  merchants  of  Granville,  in  1854= 
and  1855.  Others  less  important  followed.  A  more  recent 
treaty  was  concluded,  March  14,  1857,  between  Admiral 
Hamelin  and  the  celebrated  house  of  MM.  Regis,  of  Mar 
seilles,  which  has  agents  all  along  the  African  coast.  Here 
is  the  literal  text  of  the  first  articles  of  this  curious  agree 
ment  :  — 

Art.  1.  M.  Regis,  Sen.,  binds  himself  to  introduce  into 
Martinico  and  Guadaloupe  20,000  hired  Africans  suited  to 
agriculture. 

Art.  2.  The  introduction  shall  commence  in  1857.  The 
whole  number  of  20,000  shall  have  been  introduced  by  Jan 
uary  1,  1863. 

Art.  3.  The  contingent  for  each  colony  shall  comprise 
women  from  twelve  to  twenty-five  years  of  age,  in  a  pro 
portion  which,  in  the  aggregate  immigration  of  each  year, 
shall  not  be  less  than  one  fifth,  nor  exceed  one  half. 

*  The  immigrant  engages  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  government  agent, 
and  for  five  years  only.     He  must  be  assured  of  his  freedom,  and  must  under 
stand  the  contract  that  is  proposed  him.     He  is  entitled  to  his  homeward  ex 
penses,  with  those  of  his  wife  and  children,  if  he  wishes  to  return,  or  to  a 
premium  equal  to  these  expenses  if  he  prefers  to  re-engage  himself. 

During  the  passage  everything  is  regulated,  —  his  bed,  his  food,  the  space  to 
which  he  is  entitled,  his  clothing,  his  treatment  if  sick. 

A  cruising  squadron  is  kept,  at  great  expense,  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  the 
commandant  watches  with  extreme  solicitude  over  frauds,  infractions,  or  en 
croachments  through  negligence  or  cupidity  in  these  complicated  operations. 

At  the  place  of  disembarkation,  the  immigrant  is  placed  under  the  care  of 
another  government  agent,*  and  his  wages,  premium,  and  return  are  guaranteed 
by  this  protection.  He  is  vaccinated,  cared  for,  fed,  and  clothed  in  the  man 
ner  provided  for  by  the  regulations.-  Those  who  fail  in  their  engagements  to 
him  are  menaced  with  severe  penalties. 

To  undertake  the  transportation  of  immigrants,  an  authorization  is  necessary. 

*  This  agent  is  generally  a  surge  on  of  the  navy,  chosen  as  best  acquainted  with  the 
details  of  salubrity  and  hygiene. 


220  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

Art.  4.  The  immigrants  can  only  embark  on  the  ships 
of  M.  Regis  in  a  state  of  freedom. 

This  agreement  is  in  full  execution.  The  colonists  antici 
pate  the  most  happy  results  from  it. 

But  what !  is  not  this  a  most  remarkable  fact  from  the 
stand-point  that  we  take  ?  It  is  from  the  African  race  that 
laborers  are  borrowed,  destined  to  replace  other  Africans 
who  are  accused  of  caring  only  for  idleness. 

Europeans,  East  Indians,  Chinamen,  and  Africans  have 
been  successively  tried. 

In  1845,  as  we  have  seen,  the  French  government  desired 
to  encourage  European  immigration.  This  was  a  wise  and 
far-seeing  measure,  for  the  colonists  were  lacking  most  of 
all  in  choice  artisans,  mechanics,  overseers,  and  agricultural 
managers,  to  perfect  their  stock  of  implements,  and  direct 
or  train  less  intelligent  workmen.  It  is  often  said,  that  this 
attempt  failed  because  it  is  impossible  for  Europeans  to 
labor  under  a  tropical  sun,  and  a  proof  is  frequently  al 
leged  in  the  lack  of  success  of  the  former  bound  whites, 
who  were  the  first  laborers  of  the  colonies.  But  it  is  for 
gotten  that  these  bound  men  labored  nevertheless  for  148 
years,  from  1626  to  1174.*  It  is,  above  all,  forgotten 
that,  chosen  at  random  by  sea-captains,  transported  with 
out  calculating  for  these  Frenchmen,  as  is  done  for  an 
Indian,  the  height  of  the  deck  of  the  vessel,  and  the  quan 
tity  of  respirable  air  and  drinkable  water,  treated  during 
the  eighteen  months  or  two  years  of  their  engagements  like 
true  slaves,  badly  fed,  and  often  without  wages,  these  bound 
laborers  nevertheless  became  the  heads  of  numerous  fami 
lies  who  still  inhabit  the  colonies.  They  were  not  destined 
to  labor,  but  to  people,  and  the  decree  of  17H  checked 
immigration  because  the  end  was  attained,  because  the 
white  population  was  sufficiently  augmented.  The  bound 
men  ended,  therefore,  not  because  they  had  failed,  but  be- 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1847,  p.  217.     Hist,  du  travail  avx  colonies,  by  M.  Maurel. 


LABOR  AND   IMMIGRATION.  221 

cause  they  had  succeeded.  In  any  case,  there  is  nothing 
comparable  between  the  two  epochs,  unless  it  be  the  cli 
mate,  which  has  remained  the  same.  Now  whites  have 
been  seen  to  labor  even  at  Guiana ;  there  are  many  at  Porto 
Rico  ;  the  railroad  from  Kingston  to  Spanish  Town,  in  Ja 
maica,  was  constructed  by  whites,  in  1845,  without  a  single 
one  having  died  in  the  task.*  Doubtless  the  whites  have 
more  difficulty  than  the  blacks  in  becoming  acclimated  ; 
but  after  all,  if  French  or  European  immigration  tends  lit 
tle  towards  the  colonies,  it  is  less  because  Frenchmen  can 
not  live  there,  than  because  they  like  better  to  live  in 
France.  It  is  kncvwn  that,  for  various  reasons,  the  French 
is  the  least  emigrating  of  nations,  f  Moreover,  they  are 
accustomed  to  wages  and  food  which  renders  their  employ 
ment  very  costty.  But  the  introduction  .of  good  European 
workmen  into  the  colonies  should  not  be  renounced,  even 
at  great  expense  ;  there  is  greater  need  of  heads  there 
than  hands. 

The  races  accustomed  to  emigration  and  adapted  to  labor 
under  a  tropical  sun  are,  in  Asia,  the  Chinamen  and  the 
East  Indians  ;  in  Africa,  the  negroes  of  both  coasts,  and  the 
inhabitants  of  Madeira,  the  Azores,  and  Madagascar. 

The  East  Indian  is  sober,  more  intelligent  than  the  black, 
but  less  robust.  Ill  treated  in  his  own  country,  he  emi 
grates  willingly,  but  with  the  intention  of  returning. 

The  immigration  of  East  Indian  laborers,  known  under 
the  name  of  Coolies,  was  easy  to  England,  since  she  found 
them  in  her  own  possessions.  More  than  150,000  have  been 
hired  and  transported  to  her  colonies. 

France  has  naturally  been  tempted  to  imitate  her  exam 
ple.  A  first  convoy  was  organized  in  1852  by  the  Louis 

*  Revue,  coloniale,  1845,  pp.  7,  216. 

f  Of  400,000  persons  that  annually  quit  Europe,  England  counts  more  than 
240,000;  Germany,  100,000;  France, "from  17,000  to  18,000.  (Report  of  M.  Hu 
bert-Delisle  to  the  Senate  on  the  law  of  immigration,  July  10,  1860.) 


222  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

Napoleon,  with  infinite  precautions  for  the  health,  liberty, 
and  family  reunion  of  the  engaged  Coolies.  Several  convoys 
followed,  with  satisfactory  success,  and  12,000  East  Indians 
were  thus  despatched  to  our  colonies,  principally  to  Bour 
bon.  The  East  Indians  sailed  from  our  stations  of  Poridi- 
cheriy  and  Karikal ;  but  the  territory  of  these  wrecks  of  our 
former  power  is  exceedingly  circumscribed,  and  nearly  all 
the  Coolies  came  from  the  interior,  and  were  natives  of  the 
vast  Britannic  possessions. 

Now,  what  has  England  resolved  ?  She  has  constantly 
refused  legally  to  sanction  this  immigration  ;  and  our  re 
cruiting  agents  have  been  more  than  once-,  even  at  the  time 
of  the  Crimean  war,  seized,  fined,  and  imprisoned.  She 
demands  that  we  shall  renounce  Africans,  and  refuses  us  East 
Indians.  For  several  years,  things  have  stood  in  this  wise. 
It  needed  the  skilful  energy  of  the  delegate  from  Bourbon, 
M.  Imhaus,  to  obtain  of  the  English  government,  in  1860,  a 
treaty  insuring  to  this  colony  6,000  Coolies. 

China  does  not  give  us  what  was  refused  us  in  the  East 
Indies.  More  remote  from  our  possessions,  —  closed,  de 
spite  constantly  violated  treaties,  to  all  relations  with  Eu 
rope,  —  it  offers  us  but  insufficient  resources.  England  had 
counted  greatly  on  Chinamen  ;  *  and  in  1851  Mr.  George 
Barclay  wrote  to  Earl  Grey,  "We  shall  find  laborers  in 
China  more  capable  of  enduring  the  climate  than  the  Ma- 
deirians,  more  energetic  than  the  East  Indians,  and  more 
tractable  than  the  Kroomans  "  (free  Africans  from  the  Kroo 
coast). 

Another  agent,  Mr.  White,  wrote,  at  the  same  epoch,  from 
Macao  :  — 

"  The  Chinese  population  in  the  south  is  superabundant. 
Its  means  of  existence  are-  not  in  proportion  to  its  daily 
increase  ;  a  superhuman  effort  is  needed  for  it  to  procure 
the  prime  necessaries  of  life.  In  spite  of  the  regulations, 

*  Parliamentary  papers.     Reports  to  the  Committee  of  Emigration,  1851. 


LABOR   AND  IMMIGRATION.  223 

which  strictly  prohibit  emigration,  the  Chinamen  desire  to 
quit  their  country,  and  are  ready  to  go  wherever  there  is 
a  chance  of  earning  their  livelihood.  Thousands  go  from 
Singapore  yearly,  and  spread  over  the  neighboring  islands. 
There  are  several  hundred  thousand  in  Java.  They  swarm 
at  Manilla.  They  are  found  in  masses  in  Australia  and 
California." 

The  climate  of  the  south  of  China  is,  moreover,  the  same 
as  that  of  the  Antilles.  Sugar-mills  and  well-cultivated,  su 
gar-cane  plantations  are  to  be  seen  near  Amoy.  At  Singa 
pore  and  Penang,  under  the  same  latitude  as  that  of  Guiana, 
the  Chinamen  have  cleared  forests,  planted  spices,  etc. 

Moreover,  they  are  generally  robust  and  laborious.  De 
spite  these  advantages,  while  the  Chinamen  become  easily 
acclimated  at  Cuba,  accept  in  Peru  the  repugnant  labor  of 
loading  guano,  and  finish  the  Panama  Railroad  under  the 
tropical  sun,  it  appears  that  they  have  not  wholly  succeed 
ed  in  the  English  colonies,  unless  it  may  be  in  Guiana  and 
Trinidad,  nor  in  the  French  possessions,  either  because  the 
length  of  the  voyage  has  rendered  the  price  high  arid  the 
mortality  fearful,*  or  because  the  obligation  to  recruit  only 
at  open  ports  has  created  too  many  difficulties, f  or,  lastly, 
because  the  danger  of  mutinies  on  shipboard,  which  were 
very  frequent,  has  compelled  the  ship-owners  to  raise  the 
price  of  freight  very  high,  or  to  refuse  their  vessels. 

Abuses  besides  have  been  numerous  ;  they  were  the  ori 
gin  of  serious  disturbances  at  Arnoy,  and  the  English  pa 
pers  contain  abominable  details  of  the  illicit  embarkation  of 
young  girls  under  the  Portuguese  flag,  and  of  cruelties  of 
which  Chinamen  transported  under  the  English  flag  to  the 
Chincha  Islands  were  the  victims,  to  the  point  of  commit 
ting  suicide  to  escape  their  fate.  J 

*  24  ships  took  on  board  7,356  Chinamen  for  Peru,  and  landed  but  4,754. 
t  The  glorious  treaty  signed  at  Pekin,  Oct.  25,  1860,  removes  these  difficul 
ties;  emigration  and  engagements  are  free. 

t  Correspondence  of  Lord  Clarendon  and  Sir  John  Bowring,  1854. 


224  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

But  the  principal  obstacle  to  the  immigration  of  the  Chi 
namen,  as  the  East  Indians,  rose  from  the  ruling  cause  in 
every  question  of  race,  —  the  cause  on  which  religion  alone 
can  act, — morals.  The  East  Indian  after  arriving  in  the 
colony,  restrained  by  his  prejudices  of  caste,  will  not  mar 
ry  ;  he  founds  no  stock,  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  bring  as 
many  women  as  men,  a  revolting  immorality  ensues.*  The 
Chinamen  have  not  the  same  scruples,  and  numerous  half- 
breed  Chinese  are  seen  at  Borneo  and  the  Philippine  Islands. 
But,  in  our  colonies,  few  are  disposed  to  marry  Chinamen, 
and  the  condition  of  women  in  China  renders  their  emigration 
impossible.  The  English  correspondence  is  full  of  curious 
information  on  this  head,  perfectly  in  conformity  with  the 
accounts  of  our  missionaries.  The  Chinese  pride  themselves 
on  having  ancestry,  and  consequently  on  leaving  children  ; 
but  the  female  ancestry  is  naught  in  their  eyes  ;  the  infan 
ticide  of  female  infants  is  very  common,  the  sale  of  young 
girls  for  prostitution  has  nothing  shocking  ;  women  are 
bought,  and  marriage  is  only  a  bargain,  —  a  great  number 
of  them  are  slaves.  There  is  no  other  means,  according  to 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  White,  of  procuring  them  for  the  col 
onies  than  to  buy  them.  But  we  comprehend  that  Sir  John 
Bowring  energetically  opposed  this  traffic  ;  we  also  com 
prehend  the  immorality  induced  by  the  immigration  of  Chi 
namen  without  family,  and  heartily  applaud  the  language 
of  Sir  George  Bonham  :  "  If  no  means  are  found  of  obtain 
ing  an  immigration  of  women,  that  of  men  should  directly 
cease,  —  morality,  and  the  duties  which  it  imposes  on  us, 
command  it "  ;  f  and  the  words  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
writing  to  the  colonial  governors  :  "If  the  proportions  of 

*  The  filthiness  of  the  East  Indians  is  no  less  repulsive.  I  read  in  an  interest 
ing  report  of  M.  Leclerc,  a  surgeon  delegated  by  the  government  to  accompany 
429  emigrants  who  left  Pondicherry,  Aug.  2, 1859,  for  Guadaloupe,  on  the  Siam 
(Revue  coloniale,  March,  1860):  "  The  itch  is  a  very  common  affection,  and  one 
verv  difficult  to  destroy  among  the  Indians,  who  regard  it  as  a  useful  eruption, 
necessary  to  the  health.'' 


LABOR   AND  IMMIGRATION.  225 

the  two  sexes  cannot  be  re-established,  an  end  must  be  put  to 
immigration,  however  lamentable  may  be  the  necessity."* 
This  immorality  of  the  Chinamen  and  Indians,  and  these  in 
veterate  usages,  one  power  alone  could  conquer.  But  these 
are  the  races  of  all  others  most  difficult  to  convert  to  Chris 
tianity.  At  Bourbon,  a  special  chapel  for  the  Indians, 
adorned  in  the  style  of  their  country,  has  been  erected  by 
the  care  of  the  bishop  ;  and  two  Jesuit  missionaries  and  a 
cure  devote  themselves  to  the  laborious  task  of  instructing 
more  than  30,000  Indians.  But  their  apostleship  extends 
only  to  a  very  small  number,  and  ends  with  the  duration  of 
their  stay.  The  greater  number  live  heathen  and  like 
heathen. 

In  Africa,  the  islands  of  Madeira  and  the  Azores  fur 
nished,  in  184T  and  1848,  15,000  persons  to  the  English,  and 
a  few  hundreds  to  our  colonies  ;  but  this  evidently  is  not  a 
sufficient  source. 

Bourbon  might  have  recourse  to  the  Malgaches,  inhabit 
ing  the  coast  of  the  large  island  of  Madagascar ;  they  are 
born  free,  and  regarded  as  hardy  and  intelligent ;  but  the 
tribe  of  Hovas  holds  them  under  their  yoke,  and  as  long  as 
this  oppression  lasts,  their  engagement  will  be  always  im 
possible  or  precarious. 

The  vast  African  continent  lay  yonder,  fronting  by 
its  east  coast  our  American  possessions ;  by  its  west, 
the  Isle  of  Bourbon  and  our  settlements  in  the  Comoros. 
Moreover,  the  negro  was  already  familiar  to  our  colonists, 
more  submissive  than  the  Indian,  more  moral  than  the  Chi 
naman,  more  o^pen  to  religious  influences  than  either,  more 
easily  established  and  mingled  with  the  population. 

This  race  has  been,  and  is  still,  universally  preferred. 

Is  it  not  curious,  from  our  present  stand-point,  to  see  the 
colonies  return  by  preference  to  the  African  race  ? 

At  the  close  of  a  memorial  written  in  1844,  on  the  advan- 

*  Correspondence  of  the  English  Government,  1864,  pp.  22  -  25. 
10*  O 


226  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

tages  of  Chinese  and  East  Indian  immigration,*  I  read  these 
words  :  — 

"  We  shall  witness,  perhaps,  the  elucidation  of  the  fact 
that  the  providential  march  of  events  has  in  store  for  the 
human  race. 

"  The  black  population,  driven  and  crowded  back  on  all 
sides  by  other  families  placed  a  degree  higher  in  the  devel 
opment  of  the  human  species,  will  disappear  from  the  coun 
tries  subject  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  whites." 

The  contrary  is  realized.  These  higher  families  bow  less 
willingly  to  toil,  and  open  themselves  less  readily  to  Chris 
tianity,  than  this  always  despised  race  ;  and  after  having 
carefully  sought  how  to  replace  the  freed  negroes,  we  have 
been  forced  to  conclude  that  it  must  be  by  other  freed 
negroes. 

Does  not  this  immigration,  which  seems  the  remedy  for 
all  the  evils  of  the  colonies,  menace  them  -with  serious 
eyils,  which  will  endure  longer  than  the  transient  services 
they  can  render  ? 

The  evils  induced  by  immigration  were  pointed  out  at 
first,  and  have  been  realized  ever  since  the  day  that  it 
was  accomplished.  It  is  baleful  to  the  freedmen,  the  col 
onies,  the  colonists,  and  the  hired  laborers. 

Immigration  weighs  on  the  wages  of  the  freedmen,  and, 
designed  to  supply  the  place  of  those  who  do  not  labor,  it 
comes  in  competition  with  those  who  do  labor  ;  far  from 
encouraging  labor  among  them,  it  consummates  its  discour 
agement. 

It  imposes  on  the  colonists  expenses  f  which  would  be 

*  M.  de  Challaye,  ex-consul  in  China,  fievue  colonink,  1844,  pp.  3,  557. 

t  L'Avenir,  Guadaloupe,  Dec.  2,  1859,  states  that  the  colony  had  already 
received  5,773  East  Indians,  188  Madeirians,  and  3,205  Africans,  —  in  all,  9,166 
immigrants,  since  1854;  but  that,  the  immigration  fund  failing,  it  became  neces 
sary  to  replenish  it,  in  part,  from  the  engaged  laborers,  and  in  part  by  a  poll- 
tax.  Is  it  not  iniquitous  to  lay  this  tax  on  those  to  whom  it  is  designed  to  raise 
up  competitors? 


LABOR   AND  IMMIGRATION.  227 

better  employed  in  improving  their  stock  of  tools  and  pay 
ing  the  freedmen  higher  wages  ;  it  accustoms  them  to  re 
main  in  the  old  routine  of  bad  management. 

In  his  report  on  the  administration  of  Jamaica,  in  1845, 
the  Governor,  Lord  Elgin,  declared  that  he  had  but  indiffer 
ent  confidence  in  the  effect  of  the  introduction  of  immi 
grants,  viewing  it,  says  he,  "  as  a  means  of  not  admitting 
the  improvements  dictated  by  experience,  and  also  of  low 
ering  the  price  of  labor  by  the  creation  of  a  factitious  com 
petition."* 

The  Governor  of  Bourbon,  M.  Darricau,  exclaimed  in 
1858,  with  laudable  frankness  :  "  They  ask  me  everywhere 
for  hands,  and  everywhere  I  see  nothing  but  abuse  of  hands. 
They  remember  very  well  that  they  have  a  rival  in  indige 
nous  sugar  when  the  regulation  of  the  differential  duties  is 
in  question  ;  they  think  little  of  it  when  the  question  is  to 
regulate  the  industrial  economy  of  the  sugar  production."! 

Baleful  to  the  freedmen,  an  evil  counsellor  to  the  colo 
nists,  immigration  creates  above  all  a  permanent  danger  to 
the  social  and  moral  state %f  the  colonies.  On  thinking  of 
these  nooks  of  the  globe,  where  crowd  and  mingle  to 
gether  masses  of  negroes,  Indians,  Chinamen,  and  Malays, 
with  a  handful  of  whites,  one  shudders  for  the  race,  threat 
ened  by  deplorable  mixtures,  and  for  morality,  and  good 
order,  afflicted  by  this  invasion  of  a  heathenism  which 
Christianity  has  not  time  to  break  through.  By  the  admis 
sion  of  all, J  this  new  population  is  shamefully  immoral ;  to 
its  presence  the  magistrates  attribute  the  progress  of  crim 
inality,  arid  how  should  it  be  otherwise  ?  Of  25,458  East 
Indians  introduced  into  Mauritius  by  private  speculation, 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1847,  No.  11,  p.  323. 

t  Journal  des  Debuts,  Sept.  18,  1859. 

J  At  no  epoch,  not  even  in  the  worst  times  of  slavery,  has  the  country  had 
to  mourn  heinous  crimes  so  numerous  and  so  various,  as  since  the  East  Indian 
immigration.  (Jules  Duval,  Bourbon,  Rev.  des  Deux-Mondes,  April  15,  186'G, 
p.  868.) 


228  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

from  1834  to  1839,  there  were  500  women  ;  of  -16,000  intro 
duced  in  1843,  6,000  women.  No  priests  of  their  tongue, 
no  chiefs,  no  schools,  no  examples  among  these  laborers, 
the  lowest  of  their  country,  which  the  priests  are  attempt 
ing  with  infinite  pains  to  evangelize.  Mauritius  has 
already  received  more  than  107,000  East  Indians,  a  num 
ber  superior  to  that  of  the  entire  population ;  Bourbon 
more  than  50,000.  If  these  men  return,  their  costly  trans 
portation  ruins  the  finances  ;  *  their  wages,  which  they  carry 
with  them,  swallow  up  capital ;  their  fleeting  stay  intro 
duces  no  progress,  —  agricultural  and  moral  instruction 
must  constantly  begin  again  for  the  new-comers,  as  the 
art  of  war  for  conscripts  ;  if  they  remain,  they  end  by  being 
the  stronger,  and  can  rule  over  everything  after  having  cor 
rupted  everything,  unless  mortality,  enormous  both  during 
the  passage  f  and  after  the  arrival,  should  serve  as  remedy. 

This  last  danger  threatens  neither  the  freedmen,  nor  the 
colonists,  nor  the  colonies,  but  the  immigrants  themselves. 
They  are  exposed  to  many  more  dangers  in  Africa  and  the 
East  Indies,  if  it  be  true  that  thfc  temptation  of  the  certain 
hire  of  human  merchandise  resuscitates  the  slave-trade, 
slave-hunts,  and  the  crimping  of  East  Indians. 

Considering  here  exclusively  the  colonial  interest  and  the 
question  of  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  we  come,  in  brief, 
to  these  conclusions  :  — 

It  is  not  true  that  the  desire  of  introducing  new  labor 
ers  into  the  colonies  'was  born  on  the  morrow  or  in  con 
sequence  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  ;  it  was  conceived, 
expressed,  and  realized  long  before. 

It  is  not  true  that  emancipation  has  wholly  suppressed 
labor,  and  rendered  this  immigration  absolutely  necessary. 

*  In  1845,  the  immigration  of  Mauritius  had  cost  the  colony  9,500,000  fr., 
and  the  government,  8,116,300  fr.  The  colony  still  owed  the  mother  country 
7,119,350  fr.,  and  was  forced  to  expend  1,250,000  fr.  annually  for  new  immigra 
tion:  Revue  coloniale,  1846,  p.  511. 

t  Revue,  coloniale,  1844,  p.  57. 


LABOR  AND   IMMIGRATION.  229 

Labor  has  fallen  off  as  much  on  account  of  the  general 
position  of  affairs,  and  the  special  position  of  colonial  es 
tates,  as  on  that  of  the  first  impulse  which  impelled  the 
freedmen  to  flee  agricultural  labor,  which  was  to  them  the 
sign  of  servitude,  and  the  plantations,  which  had  been  its 
scene. 

It  is  not  true  that  this  falling  off  of  labor  endured  much 
longer  than  in  the  mother  country,  nor  that  it  increases 
more  and  more  ;  for  the  statistics  of  labor  and  production 
prove  that  the  greater  part  of  the  former  slaves  take  part  in 
the  labor. 

But  it  is  true  that  labor  has  changed  place,  that  the 
trades,  small  freeholds,  and,  lastly,  vagrancy,  have  taken 
many  hands  from  the  large  plantations,  and  that  the  freed 
men  distrust  the  liuret,  engagements,  and  measures  which 
remind  them  of  their  past. 

It  is  true  that  wages  are  somewhat  higher  ;  that  a  greater 
increase  is  to  be  feared  ;  that  the  price  of  products,  particu 
larly  of  sugar,  which  rose  at  first,  has  since  fallen  ;  that  the 
demand  of  consumption  has  greatly  increased  ;  that  the  col 
onies  are  in  need  of  new  hands,  at  some  points,  to  save  the 
cultures  ;  at  others,  to  develop  them  ;  at  all,  to  diminish 
the  net  cost  by  competition.  This  need  still  continues, 
and  justifies  the  measures  taken  to  facilitate  immigration. 

But  it  is  demonstrated  that  this  expedient,  difficult,  cost 
ly,  and  equivocal,  is  dangerous  to  the  future  of  colonial  so 
ciety,  and,  if  not  strictly  limited  to  the  proportion  necessary 
to  re-establish  the  equilibrium  between  the  population  and 
capital,  will  make  inhabited  Babels,  gatherings  of  all  races 
and  all  creeds,  of  Paganism  and  Christianity,  of  Caffres  and 
Chinamen,  Hindoos  and  Malgaches,  — vast  factories  where 
workmen  and  mastei  will  be  eager  only  to  make  the  most 
of  each  other  and  flee.  I  cannot  suppose  that  a  hundred 
years  from  hence  the  number  of  Chinamen  and  Indians  will 
have  centupled  in  our  colonies,  without  believing  at  the 


230  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

same  time  that  the  number  of  Europeans  will  have  dimin 
ished  in  proportion.  Fancy  a  St.  Domingo  peopled  by  Coo 
lies  ! 

It  is  also  demonstrated,  that  the  best  immigrants  are 
Africans. 

If  the  Africans  are  the  race  of  all  others  easiest  assimi 
lated  to  our  manners  and  faith,  if  it  is  to  this  robust  and 
vigorous  race  that  we  always  return  after  so  many  trials, 
why  then  go  afar  to  seek  Africans  more  brutish  and  igno 
rant  than  the  former  slaves  ?  Because  there  is  obtained  of 
the  new-comers  engagements,  a  livret,  forced  services,  —  in 
a  word,  what  may  be  called  provisional  slavery.  Would  it 
not  be  better  to  attempt  with  the  freedmen,  and  above  all 
with  their  children,  who  have  not  the  same  reasons  for 
distrust,  measures  calculated  to  attract  and  retain  them, 
through  greater  sacrifices  and  better  treatment  ?  It  is  said 
that  the  freed  negro  is  prejudiced  to  believe  that  freedom  is 
the  right  to  idleness.  Is  not  this  also  the  prejudice,  the 
conviction,  of  the  former  masters  ?  Apart  from  intelligent 
exceptions,  what  have  they  done  to  diminish  in  practice  the 
distance  which  the  law  has  just  effaced  between  the  classes  ? 

It  is  certain  that  more  anxiety  has  been  shown  to  replace 
the  former  slaves  than  to  retain  them.  Functionaries  have 
been  appointed  to  protect  and  watch  over  immigrants,  who 
make  minute  reports  on  the  mode  of  life,  food,  labor,  and 
well-being  of  these  new-comers  ;  it  is  surprising  that  no 
analogous  patronage  has  been  organized  for  the  freedmen. 
Yet  there  has  from  all  time  been  a  firm  conviction  that  the 
Creole  negro  is  superior  to  the  African  negro.* 

"  The  24,000,000  francs,"  says  M.  Duval,  very  truly, 
"  which  Bourbon  has  expended  in  eight  years  to  bring 
Coolies  from  India,  if  applied  in  premiums  to  labor,  and  in 
the  elevation  of  wages,  would  certainly  have  not  been 

*  See  especially  the  declaration?  of  the  colonial  delegates  before  the  Com 
mission  of  1S39,  p.  109. 


LABOR   AND   IMMIGRATION.  231 

sterile It  would  be  well  also  to  modify  local  cus 
toms,  if  there  remain  in  them  any  vestige  wounding  to  the 
pride  of  men  who,  without  fully  appreciating  the  conditions 
of  liberty,  know  very  well  how  to  escape  from  slavery ; 
though  it  should  cost  a  sacrifice  of  money  or  self-love,  the 
immense  advantage  of  constituting  a  homogeneous  com 
munity,  and  retaining  the  amount  of  wages  in  the  country, 
would  be  worth  some  trouble." 

There  is  another  means  of  replacing  labor ;  namely,  to 
improve  the  economy  and  stock  of  the  colonial  cultures 
and  manufactures,  to  copy  the  processes  of  the  makers  of 
indigenous  sugar,  and  to  diminish  general  expenses  by 
the  establishment  of  central  factories.  The  central  sugar- 
mill  is  to  the  sugar-plantation  what  the  central  grist-mill  is 
to  the  wheat-field,  —  one  mill  serves  for  a  hundred  farmers ; 
until  very  lately,  each  planter  had  his  own  mill.  The  im 
provement  of  sugar-works  has  made  the  fortune  of  Bour 
bon.  Guadaloupe  and  Martinico  possess  central  sugar- 
works,  -the  result  of  which  is  admirable  ;  according  to  the 
latest  statements,*  the  yield  of  the  cane  has  been  increased 
from  5  to  13  per  cent,  and  it  is  hoped  to  obtain  still  more. 
The  planters  who  make  no  sugar,  but  sell  their  cane,  are  no 
longer  in  debt ;  the  tenants  of  the  sugar-works  pay  large 
rents,  and  make  fine  profits.  At  the  same  time,  the  ma 
chinery  and  mechanism  imported  figures  more  largely  every 
year  in  the  tables  of  customs. f  At  the  exhibition  of  1860, 
the  Bourbon  sugars  were  as  fine  as  the  refined  sugars  ;  its 
coffees,  vanillas,  tobaccos,  and  nutmegs,  the  coffees  of 
Guadaloupe  and  the  cottons  of  Desirade,  the  cocoas,  rums, 
and  ta£as  of  Martinico,  proved  that  great  and  small  cul-' 
tures  were  progressing,  J  and  medals  accorded  to  the 

*  Revue  alyerienne  et  coloniale,  Sept.,  1860,  p.  350. 

t  At  Martinico,  in  1856,  of  542  plantations,  only  62  possessed  steam-mills; 
while  at  Bourbon,  113  out  of  118  were  moved  by  steam.  Bourbon  imported 
530  000  fr.  worth  of  machinery;  Martinico,  40,000  fr.;  Guadaloupe,  50,000  fr. 

\  M.  Jules  Duval,  Journal  de*  Debats,  July  6,  1860. 


232  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

former  slaves  demonstrated  that  many  among  them  only 
needed  freedom  to  equal  their  masters. 

To  attract  the  former  laborers,  while  furnishing  a  fresh 
supply  of  new  ones,  to  return  to  the  old  cultures,  to 
adopt  new  processes,  and  (as  we  are  about  to  see)  to  en 
large  the  market,  —  such  should  be  the  future  of  the 
colonies. 

To  summon  an  inferior  population  without  circumspection, 
to  sacrifice  products  which  have  no  competitors  in  France 
obstinately  to  sugar,  to  persist  in  abortive  attempts  to  re 
suscitate  an  accursed  past,  to  fall  back  into  old  habits,  to 
seek  in  a  disguised  slave-trade,  followed  by  a  provisional 
servitude,  the  better  organization  of  labor,  — this  would  be 
a  path  full  of  sharne,  deception,  and  peril. 

To  the'  honor  of  the  colonists,  it  is  just  to  say,  that  most 
among  them  do  not  hesitate  between  the  two  paths.  "  The 
emancipation  of  the  slaves,"  says  an  enlightened  witness, 
"  which  dealt  the  colonies  for  a  moment  so  rude  a  blow, 
must  be  to  them  in  the  future  a  source  of  fruitful  and  salu 
tary  results,  by  forcing  the  planters  to  shake  off  the  apathy 
into  which  they  had  fallen,  by  the  facility  of  production  and 
its  trifling  net  cost."* 

*  Etude  sur  la  situation  economique  des  Antilles  franqaises,  by  J.  de  Crisenoy, 
1860,  p.  43. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE  COLONIAL  COMPACT.* 

THE  colonies  have  received  an  indemnity,  the  average 
production  has  increased,  the  impost  on  colonial  products 
is  reduced,  the  body  of  laborers  is  augmented.  Is  this  all  ? 
Is  this  enough  ? 

The  colonies  go  further,  and  loudly  demand  the  rupture 
of  the  colonial  compact.  Formerly  they  solicited  a  growing 
protection,  forced  labor,  reserved  flag,  protective  tariff, 
privileged  sale.  To-day  labor  is  free,  and  the  colonists 
claim,  as  a  logical  sequence,  the  freedom  of  the  products 
of  labor.  This  is  an  entire  revolution,  the  indirect  and 
unlooked-for  result  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  merits 
our  attention  for  a  moment.  We  shall  only  sum  up  some 
excellent  writings,  especially  the  "Studies"  of  a  highly 
respected  colonist,  M.  de  Chazelles. 

The  meaning  of  the  colonial  compact  is  well  known. 

The  colonies  were  at  first  undivided  tracts  conceded  to 
companies.  The  representatives  of  these  companies  sub 
divided  a  portion  of  the  soil  among  themselves.  This  appro 
priation  continued,  either  through  grants  or  under  the  form 
of  sale,  after  the  reunion  of  the  colonies  to  the  domain  of 
the  state.  Receiving  everything  from  the  state,  it  was  just 
that  the  colonies  should  bring  back  everything  to  the  state. 
In  proportion  a3  the  planters  began  to  support  themselves, 

*  Etude  sur  le  sysieme  colonial,  by  Count  de  Chazelles,  Guillaumin,  1860.  — 
Le  Libre  Echange  colonial,  by  Lepelletier  de  Saint- Reiny,  Journal  des  Ecunomistes, 
June,  1860.  —  Baudrillart,  Journal  des  Debats,  Aug.  3,  1860.  —  Count  Caffarelli, 
Rapport  au  Corps  legislatif,  June  SO,  1860,  etc. 


234  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

the  state  had  less  burdens,  with  less  rights.  But  the  state, 
as  well  as  the  colonies,  found  it  to  their  advantage  to  remain 
united  by  the  bonds  of  a  reciprocal  monopoly ;  —  to  the 
state,  the  monopolies  of  transportation  and  supplying  the 
colonies  with  European  products  ;  to  the  colonies,  the  mo 
nopoly  of  supplying  the  mother  country  with  colonial  com 
modities.  The  shipping  owed  its  prosperity  to  this  assured 
transportation,  the  most  important  part  of  which  to  it,  as  to 
the  colonies,  was  the  slave-trade.  The  outward  voyage  was 
thus  as  certain  as  the  return  voyage  •  the  commerce  of  the 
ports  and  that  of  the  colonies  was  limited  to  a  simple  and 
easily  regulated  operation ;  the  obligations  were  mutual, 
the  interests  common  ;  and  in  a  time  when  intercourse  be 
tween  nation  and  nation,  between  province  and  province, 
was  checked  by  severe  prohibitions,  each  country  attached 
the  greatest  importance  to  opening  thus,  by  the  foundation 
of  distant  colonies,  vast  outlets  for  its  ships  and  exchange. 

Spain,  Portugal,  and  France  entered  successively  upon 
the  same  course. 

Other  nations,  like  Holland,  intelligently  placed  their 
shipping  at  the  service  of  others;  and  the  Dutch  vessels, 
thanks  to  the  moderation  of  their  rates  of  freight,  had 
obtained  the  greater  part  of  the  transportation  of  the  Eng 
lish  colonies,  when,  December  1,  1651,  a  first  bill  inter 
vened,  followed  by  the  celebrated  Navigation  Act  of  1660, 
entitled,  An  Act  to  declare  by  whom  Merchandise  may  be  im 
ported,  by  the  terms  of  which  it  was  interdicted  the  English 
colonies  to  carry  their  products  to  foreign  countries,  to 
receive  from  foreign  countries  any  product,  or  to  make  use 
of  foreign  means  of  transportation. 

France  adopted  the  same  system  :  and  from  the  edict  of 
December,  16T4,  which  revoked  the  charter  of  the  West 
India  Company,  and  reunited  to  the  domain  of  the  crown 
the  lands,  islands,  and  countries  of  America,  to  the  regula 
tion  of  August  30,  1784, —  the  last  act  rendered  on  colonial 


THE   COLONIAE  COMPACT.  235 

customs  by  the  old  monarchy,  —  the  whole  commercial 
legislation  of  the  trans-oceanic  settlements  constituted,  by 
the  absolute  exclusion  of  foreign  commerce  and  flags,  the 
system  of  reciprocal  exchange  between  the  colonies  arid 
mother  country  which  is  still  called  the  colonial  compact* 

This  is  not  a  compact,  a  contract,  a  treaty,  properly 
speaking,  since  the  mother  country  alone  makes  the  law  ; 
but  for  the  very  reason  that  it  acts  alone  in  a  question  in 
which  it  is  interested,  it  is  bound  to  be  more  equitable  ;  and 
this  reciprocity  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
pledged  word,  which  holds  more  firmly  than  all  writings. 

This  system  made  the  prosperity  of  our  colonies.  In  the 
midst  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  provisioning  of  Europe 
passed  almost  entirely  to  French  commerce.  When,  under 
the  empire  of  a  hackneyed  prejudice,  men  accuse  the  French 
of  not  possessing  the  genius  of  colonization,  they  forget 
that,  masters  of  St.  Domingo,  Martiriico,  Guadaloupe,  Bour 
bon,  the  Isle  of  France,  Guiana,  and  Louisiana,  even  after 
the  loss  of  Canada  (1*765),  the  aggregate  of  their  commerce 
surpassed  that  of  all  the  European  states,  including  Eng 
land.  In  1787  this  aggregate  represented  600,000,000  fr., 
while  that  of  Great  Britain  did  not  exceed  450,000,000  fr. 
The  merchant  marine  was  flourishing,  and  was  protected  by 
a  powerful  military  marine. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  after,  there  was  no  longer  either 
Dutch  or  Spanish  marine,  the  marine  of  the  United  States 
was  only  merchant,  the  marine  of  Russia  was  in.  its  infancy, 
the  Ottoman  marine  did  riot  venture  beyond  the  Sea  of  Mar 
mora,  France  had  lost  her  marine  and  nearly  all  her  colonies. 
England  had  become  the  sovereign  of  the  seas.f 

It  may  be  thought  that,  the  smaller  the  colonial  pos 
sessions,  the  greater  was  their  need  of  protection  from  the 
mother  country,  by  the  aid  of  the  system  which  had  caused 

*  Etude  sur  h  system e  colonial,  by  M.  de  Chazelles,  p  9. 
f  M.  de  Clmzelles,  pp  23-37. 


236  THE   FRENCH!  COLONIES. 

their  prosperity  ;  but  circumstances  were  changed,  and  the 
colonial  compact  had  had  its  day. 

It  was  good  so  long  as  it  was  respected.*  But  the  sys 
tem  daily  became  onerous,  impracticable,  and  unjust.  It  be 
comes  onerous  to  the  colonies,  if  they  produce  more  than 
the  mother  country  can  consume, f  or  if  they  find  better  con 
ditions  under  which  to  buy  or  sell  elsewhere,  — onerous  to 
the  mother  country  if  it  can  itself  produce  the  commodities 
brought  it  by  the  colonies,  or  can  buy  them  cheaper  of  for 
eign  countries,  J  —  unjust,  if  conditions  change,  if,  to  benefit 
the  Treasury,  a  constantly  increasing  impost  is  laid  on  colo 
nial  products,  or  if  the  shipping  exacts  a  higher  and  higher 
freight,§ —  impracticable,  lastly,  if  circumstances  prevent 
the  colonies  from  selling  to  the  mother  country,  or  the 
mother  country  to  the  colonies. 

Circumstances  and  interests  are  modified  daily,  —  the  in 
terests  of  shipping,  of  consumption,  arid  of  humanity.  When 
confined  to  colonial  commerce,  the  merchant  shipping  is  apt 
to  fall  into  routine,  and  to  neglect  the  spirit  of  enterprise, 
sure  of  an  easy  and  perpetual  outward  and  homeward  freight. 
If  China,  Australia,  and  California  call  it  to  a  wider  diffusion, 
it  neglects  the  colonies. ||  The  series  of  monopolies  which 
the  product  passes  through  before  reaching  the  consumer, 
raises  the  price  to  its  detriment.  Either  the  colonies  become 
too  large  markets  to  feed  the  mother  country,  or  they  de- 

*  Before  the  Revolution  the  duty  on  colonial  sugars  was,  in  1777,  5  fr. ;  in 
1791,  4  fr.  28  c.  per  100  kilog. ;  it  did  not  even  compensate  for  the  expenses  of 
the  state  in  the  colonies. 

t  M.  de  Chazelles  affirms  that  there  was  a  time  when  it  was  the  custom  to 
set  fire  to  the  surplus  crops. 

\  The  net  cost  of  sugar  per  quintal  is  from  24  to  25  fr.  in  the  Antilles;  17  fr. 
in  Cuba.  (Journal  des  Economistes,  June,  1860,  p.  435,  art.  of  M.  Lepelletier  de 
Saint-Reniy.) 

§  From  1831  to  1848  freight  from  the  Antilles  did  not  once  reach  100  fr.  per 
ton;  from  1854  to  1860  it  has  been  but  once  below  this  figure  (1857),  and  usually 
higher.  (Ibid.,  p.  432.) 

||  A  circular  of  the  Minister  of  the  Colonies  (1860),  urges  the  ports  to  send 
ships  to  Guadaloupe,  the  roadsteads  of  which  are  empty.  (Ibid.,  p.  433.) 


THE   COLONIAL   COMPACT."  237 

mand,  if  small,  too  great  sacrifices  for  a  slender  result.  It 
thence  follows,  that  they  are  now  attacked,  now  sustained, 
by  public  opinion  and  political  science  ;  on  no  subject  is  in 
fatuation  sooner  followed  by  discouragement.  Around  the 
colonies  form  new  communities,  rich,  powerful,  and  active, 
with  power  to  enrich  them  if  free,  or  to  crush  them  if  do- 
pendent.  Wars  arise  that  transfer  them  from  one  nation 
to  another,  and  from  prosperity  to  ruin. 

By  degrees,  the  colonial  compact  has  thus  been  rent  by  a 
thousand  changes,  all  realized  without  exception. 

England,  at  first  logical,  prohibited  within  her  own  bounds 
the  culture  of  tobacco  (1652),  then  that  of  the  beet-root  ; 
but  the  too  rigorous  application  of  the  Navigation  Act 
cost  it  the  United  States,  and  we  see  it,  in  1845,  abolish 
this  act,  and  accept  the  doctrine  of  universal  commercial 
freedom. 

Holland  makes  French  ports  of  her  little  colonies  in  the 
Caribbean  Sea,  like  the  Danish  and  Swedish  islands.  Spain 
has  accorded,  since  1805,  the  commercial  franchise  to  Cuba 
and  Porto  Rico. 

France  has  been  drawn,  step  by  step,  into  the  same  path. 
After  the  loss  of  Canada,  which  furnished  the  Antilles  with 
timber,  it  became  necessary  to  suffer  them  to  procure  it 
from  the  United  States.  The  regulation  of  August  30,  1784, 
permitted  this  importation,  with  some  others.  Revolution, 
war,  and  conquest  disturbed  all  laws  during  twenty  years. 
On  the  return  of  order,  it  was  really  necessary  to  accord 
favors  to  the  distracted  colonies.  The  list  of  foreign  pro 
ducts  'admitted  to  entry  increased  by  degrees,  and  foreign 
flags  appeared  habitually  by  the  side  of  the  French  colors. 
The  mother  country  itself  passed  through  years  of  famine  or 
dearth,  which  prevented  it  from  supplying  its  colonies  with 
corn  and  flour,  especially  the  most  distant,  —  Bourbon.  So 
many  events,  so  many  exceptions,  authorized  sometimes,  in 
cases  of  urgency,  by  the  governors,  sometimes  by  ordinances 


238  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

and  statutes  !  *  Foreign  wheat,  prohibited  until  1826,  then 
admitted  in  consideration  of  a  duty  of  21  fr.  50  c.  per  barrel, 
fajling  by  degrees  to  2  fr.  per  quintal  (25  c.  for  maize)  in  1853, 
for  one  year,  then  two,  then  seven,  is  now  admitted  with  this 
duty  of  2  fr.  by  the  provisions  of  the  statute  of  1860,  which 
for  the  first  time  has  admitted  foreign  grain  at  the  same 
duty,  and  lowered  the  tax  on  rice  from  4  fr.  to  25  c.  per 
quintal.  A  statute  of  the  same  month  reduces  the  premium 
on  cod  imported  into  the  colonies  by  foreign  fisheries  from 
7  fr.  to  3  fr.  per  100  kilogrammes. f 

We  have  read  the  history  of  indigenous  sugar,  and  that 
of  the  impost  on  colonial  sugar,  and  on  foreign  sugar, 
which,  free  to  enter  France  by  paying  only  3  francs  per  100 
kilogrammes  by  the  provisions  of  the  statute  of  May  23, 
1860,  is  released  even  from  this  extra  charge  by  the  decree 
of  January  13,  1861. 

Lastly,  we  are  not  ignorant  that  the  obligation  to  supply 
themselves  from  France  imposes  on  the  colonies  the  bur 
den  of  paying  the  agents  of  improvements  in  the  manufac 
ture  of  sugar,  twice  as  much  for  machinery,  four  times  as 
much  for  bone-black,  and  six  times  as  much  for  coal,  as  is 
paid  them  in  the  mother  country. J  It  does  not  occur  to 
us,  that  the  price  current  of  articles  of  great  consumption 
in  the  Antilles  is,  by  the  effect  of  the  same  system,  main 
tained  about  one  third  higher  than  the  prices  of  the  same 
articles  in  the  neighboring  English  and  Spanish  colonies. § 

All  the  clauses  of  the  colonial  compact  are  therefore  at 
once  effaced.  The  colonies  demand  its  abolition  by  this 
irrefragable  reasoning,  —  We  are  deprived  of  the '  advan 
tages  of  the  compact,  deliver  us  from  the  burdens. 

*  Ordinances  of  Jan.  5, 1826,  Nov.  9,  1832,  Dec.  8,  1839,  Dec.  2, 1846;  Statute 
of  April  29, 1845 ;  Decree  of  Sept.  30,  1853.  See  the  remarkable  report  of  Count 
Caffarelli  to  the  Legislative  Corps,  June  30,  1860. 

f  Keport  of  M.  Ancel,  July  6,  1860. 

|  Chazelles,  p.  265. 

4  Journal  den  Kconomistes,  June,  I860;  Libre  tchanye  colonial,  by  M.  Lepelle- 
tier  de  Saiut-Remy,  p.  434. 


THE   COLONIAL   COMPACT.  239 

Already  the  General  Councils  of  Guadaloupe,  Martiriico, 
and  Bourbon  have  uttered  this  prayer,  to  which  the  ne\v 
economical  system  of  France  gives  more  opportuneness  and 
force. 

The  statute  which  lowers  the  tariff  on  corn  and  rice  im 
ported  into  the  colonies  fixed  June  30,  1866,  as  its  limit, 
with  the  thought  that  the  question  of  colonial  free  trade 
would  from  this  time  be  resolved.*  "  For,"  says  the  re 
port,  "  we  consider  the  solution  of  urgent  importance." 

This  disquieted  the  ports,  and  a  report  read  a  few  days 
after  gave  assurance  that  "the  government  does  not  in 
tend  to  give  to  the  laws  presented  a  more  extended  scope 
than  they  express  ;  the  colonial  compact  is  not  in  question, 
but  simpler  measures  suited  to  facilitate  the  alimentation  of 
the  colonies. "f 

In  fact,  the  shipping  interest  —  an  interest  of  prime  im 
portance —  alone  can  check  it.  For  the  colonies  cannot 
attract  foreign  capital  and  dispose  of  their  products  to  for 
eign  countries  without  making  use  of  foreign  shipping.  It 
does  not  enter  into  the  object  of  the  present  study  to  take 
sides  on  so  grave  a  question. J 

But  we  can  affirm  without  temerity,  what  so  many  poli 
ticians  have  long  foreseen,  that  the  colonial  compact  is 
drawing  near  its  end,  and  that  time  will  speedily  complete 
the  transformation  of  the  consequences  which  still  survive 
the  principle. 

We  can  also  affirm  that  the  colonies,  less  protected,  will 

*  Report  of  M.  Caffarelli.  t  Report  of  M.  Ancel,  17. 

\  It  may  be  observed,  that  for  seven  years  past  the  importation  of  foreign 
flour  into  the  colonies  has  been  nearly  free;  yet  they  have  not  ceased  to  supply 
themselves,  by  preference,  from  France,  because  the  quality  is  superior  and  the 
relations  better  established.  Even  Mayotte,  Avhere  commerce  is  free,  trades 
only  with  France.  On  the  other  hand,  the  franchise,  and  a  protective  duty  of 
40  fr.  per  ton,  have  not  sufficed  to  insure  a  supply  of  rice  to  the  Antilles  by 
French  vessels.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that,  habits  being  stronger  than  laws, 
the  change  of  tariff  will  have  no  influence  on  the  movement  of  navigation  be 
tween  France  and  its  colonies. 


240  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES 

aspire  to  be  less  governed,  and  that  political  freedom  will 
quickly  follow  the  establishment  of  commercial  freedom. 

"  The  Antilles  are  no  longer  either  the  gardens  or  the  fiefs 
of  Europe,"  exclaimed  General  Foy  in  1822.*  "We  must 
renounce  this  youthful  illusion.  Nature  has  placed  them  on 
the  shores  of  America.  With  America  is  their  future.  It 
is  as  entrepots  of  commerce,  as  great  markets  placed  be 
tween  the  two  hemispheres,  that  they  will  henceforth  figure 
on  the  world's  stage." 

If  the  enlargement  of  the  colonial  market  correspond  to 
a  large  growth  of  production,  a  new  future,  full  of  magnifi 
cent  promise,  opens  before  the  colonies. f 

Would  it  have  been  possible  for  them  to  pretend  to  it 
without  the  abolition  of  slavery  ? 

This  great  act  has  consummated  the  destruction  of  the 
colonial  compact.  The  maintenance  of  slavery  was  one  of 
the  privileges  secured  by  the  mother  country  to  the  colo 
nies,  and,  as  it  were,  the  corner-stone  of  the  structure. 
Furthermore,  emancipation  has  killed  routine,  and  wrested 
colonial  society  from  its  stupor  by  a  violent  but  salutary 
awakening.  The  affranchisement  of  labor  will  thus  have 
contributed  to  the  franchise  of  the  product,  and,  like 
France,  which  uprises  from  fearful  concussions  with  con 
stantly  increasing  energy,  the  colonies,  her  offspring,  will 
succeed  in  drawing  more  power  and  wealth  from  freedom 
than  were  ever  given  them  by  protection. 

*  Cited  by  M.  de  Chazelles,  p.  102. 

f  Bourbon,  which  before  1848  had  never  exceeded  30,000,000  kilog.  of  sugar, 
now  exceeds  61,000,000.  At  Guadaloupe,  with  central  works,  the  production 
may  be  doubled.  The  same  is  true  of  Martinico.  The  colonies  might  furnish 
200,000,000  kilog.  of  freight.  St.  Domingo  gives  but  115.  (Lepelletier  de  Saint- 
Remy,  loc.  cit.t  p.  441.) 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

POPULATION,   FAMILY,   SOCIAL   CONDITION. 

I.  WE  need  not  question  whether  there  is  a  law  that 
presides  over  the  propagation  of  the  human  species  among 
the  Mahometans,  Chinese,  Indians,  or  those  heathen  races 
which  occupy  two  thirds  of  the  surface  of  the  habitable 
globe.  There  is  no  regular  law,  but  precepts  in  which  self 
ishness  has  more  share  than  morality,  —  polygamy,  corrup 
tion,  voluptuousness,  infanticide,  —  crimes  without  name, 
maladies  without  number.  These  horrors  teach  us  to  take 
literally  the  text,  "The  Devil  is  the  prince  of  this  world." 
We  no  longer  doubt  it  when  we  see  in  reality  evil  keeping 
the  gates  of  life,  —  debauchery  drawing  man  from  nothing-, 
ness,  crime,  or  contagion,  to  fling  him  back  again  into 
death. 

In  the  bosom  of  Christianity,  communities  are  perpetu 
ated  by  a  few  pure  and  simple  laws,  which  corruption  dis 
turbs,  yet  does  not  succeed  in  overruling.  Regular  fami 
lies  compose  the  community ;  they  find  their  source  in 
legitimate  marriages,  alliances  recognized  by  the  laws, 
blessed  by  religion,  formed  by  the  free  consent  and  perpet 
ual  vow  of  a  single  man  and  a  single  woman.  The  propor 
tionate  number  of  men  and  women  favors  moriogomy.  The 
habitual  excess  of  births  over  deaths  progressively  in 
creases  the  population,  and  such  is  the  regularity  intro 
duced  into  a  series  of  facts,  ruled  notwithstanding  by  the 
most  mysterious  laws,  that  it  has  been  possible,  without 
greatly  erring,  while  making  allowance  for  inevitable  per 
turbations,  to  fix,  in  figures  sufficiently  exact  to  form  the 


242  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

basis  of  financial  calculations,  the  laws  of  increase  of  the 
human  family,  and  the  common  rules  of  births  and  deaths. 

To  draw  moral  information  from  these  figures,  we  usually 
consult  the  number  which  expresses  the  equal  proportion 
of  men  and  women,  that  which  indicates  the  statistics  of 
legitimate  marriages  and  births,  and  that  which  verifies  the 
excess  of  births  over  deaths  ;  the  first  proves  that  the  pop 
ulation  is  moral,  the  second  that  it  is  honorable,  the  third 
that  it  is  growing. 

One  of  the  effects  of  slavery,  in  whatever  place  it  exists, 
is  to  cause  perturbation  in  these  laws,  thus  at  once  attack 
ing,  the  regularity,  morality,  and  vitality  of  nations. 

Wherever  slavery  reigns,  there  is  no  proportion  between 
the  number  of  men  and  that  of  women. 

Mark  what  was  the  population  of  the  slave  colonies,  De 
cember  31,  1841. 

MARTINICO. 

( Men,  4,451 

White  population    .        .        .|Womeaf       5?091 

Mulatto  population          .         .  -j  ^^       2l'e58  j     38>729 

(  Men,  34,432  ) 

Slave  population     .         .         •  J          '  >•    72,859 

|  Women,      38,427  )  — 

Total     ...-..•     121,130 

GUADALOUPE. 

(Men,  18,955) 

White  and  mulatto  population  j  Womerij      22,402  ]"        ' 

(Men,  41,915) 

Slave  population     .         .         .  1  _      '  Af,oo7[    8^,752 

(  Women,      45,837  )  — 

Total 129>109 

GUIANA. 

(Men,  692) 

White  population    .         .         -j^^ 

(  Men, 

Mulatto  population          .        .  1 

(Men,  6,645 

Slave  population     .         .        .  J         ' 

(  Women,         6,298  , 
Total     . 19,375 


POPULATION,   FAMILY,  SOCIAL  CONDITION.  243 

BOURBON. 

(Men,  16,182) 

White  population    .         .         .  1          '  fKflQfif    31,818 

(Women,  15,636) 

(  Men,  5,544  ) 

Mulatto  population          .         •  S  «r  KCC_?-11.211 

(Women,         5,667) 

(Men,  37,136) 

Slave  populate     .        .        .  23>m  j      0,260 


Total     .......     103,289 

GENERAL   TOTAL. 

White  and  free  mulatto  population         .         .         .     139,089 
Slave  population         ......         233,814 

General  total        .....     372,903 

In  all  the  colonies,  among  the  white  and  the  niulatto  pop 
ulation,  the  number  of  women  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of 
men,  in  general  a  little  exceeding  it.  Among  the  slave 
population,  the  latter  is  in  the  ascendency,  two  thirds  at 
Bourbon,  one  thirtieth  at  Guiana.  This  is  explained  by 
the  slave-trade,  which  imported  more  men  than  women.  In 
the  Antilles,  on  the  contrary,  the  women  outnumber  the 
-men.  Is  it  because  the  labor  in  the  sun  kills  the  men, 
while  the  women  work  generally  within  doors  ?  Is  it  be 
cause  proximity  to  the  African  coast  has  perpetuated  the 
slave-trade  at  Bourbon,  while,  since  the  suppression  of  this 
traffic,  the  proportion  of  the  sexes  has  regained  at  the  An 
tilles  a  more  normal  equilibrium  ?  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is 
demonstrated  that  slavery  destroys  in  the  slave  race  the 
proportion  which  exists  in  the  two  free  races. 

Which  race,  among  the  three,  progresses  with  greatest 
rapidity  ?  Unfortunately,  the  statistical  tables,  since  1848, 
have  ceased  to  make  any  distinction.  But  let  us  compare 
the  years  anterior  to  emancipation,  taking  a  single  colony, 
Martinico,  to  avoid  complication  :  *  — 

*  Notice  offidelle,  1840,  p.  33. 


244  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 


Whites. 

Mulattoes. 

Slaves. 

Total. 

Jan.  1, 

1790 

10,635 

5,235 

83,414 

99,284 

u 

1836 

9,000 

29,000 

78,076 

116,076 

« 

1845 

9,139 

36,626 

76,117 

121,882 

a 

1848 

9,542 

38,729 

72,859 

121,130 

The  white  population  has  remained  almost  stationary  foi 
sixty  years. 

The  mulatto  population  has  increased  prodigiously. 

The  slave  population  has  continually  diminished. 

It  is  true  that  two  causes  co-operate  in  the  variations  of 
the  last  two  classes  ;  not  only  the  fluctuation  of  births  and 
deaths,  but  also  that  of  emancipations,  which  causes  a  trans 
fer  from  the  third  to  the  second.  The  number  of  these  is 
known  ;  from  1836  to  1848,  8,538  slaves  were  freed  in  Mar- 
tinico.*  Now  the  mulatto  population,  despite  the  deaths, f 
which  we  do  not  take  into  account,  has  increased  9,726,  or 
1,188  individuals  more  than  the  number  freed,  while  the 
white  population  has  not  increased  400.  The  mulatto  pop 
ulation,  therefore,  is  the  only  one  that  has  progressed. 

But  how  has  it  grown,  —  through  marriage  ? 

The  answer  is  in  the  colonial  proverb:  "The  white  is 
God's  child,  the  black  is  the  Devil's  child,  the  mulatto  is 
nobody's  child. "  It  is  also  in  the  well-known  repugnance 
of  the  whites  to  any  alliance  with  the  blacks.  It  is  lastly 
in  the  statistics  of  the  civil  state. 

From  1838  to  1847,  there  were  6,175  marriages  among 
the  free  population,  and  1,754  marriages  among  the  slave 
population,  that  is,  only  one  third  as  many  marriages  in  the 
population  twice  as  large  as  the  other.  Again,  we  have 
chosen  a  period  signalized  by  prodigious  efforts  to  initiate 
the  negroes  into  the  family  relation.  The  official  table  which 
contains  these  results  informs  us  that  in  Bourbon,  till  1840, 
trouble  was  not  even  taken  to  authenticate  regularly  the 
number  of  marriages  among  the  slaves. 

*  Table  of  1847,  published  in  1850,  p.  33,  No.  13. 
t  About  5  per  cent  a  year,  Table  No-  11. 


POPULATION,   FAMILY,   SOCIAL    CONDITION.  245 

"  It  is  a  system  of  universal  promiscuousness  and  concu 
binage/'  said  M.  de  Broglie.*  "  The  child  has  no  faher, 
the  father  no  family.  ....  The  negresses  are  in  general 
abandoned  by  the  men  who  have  rendered  them  mothers  ; 
the  children  are  always  abandoned  by  their  fathers,  and 
sometimes  by  their  mothers. " 

At  least,  do  the  births  furnish  a  notable  increase  to  the 
population,  and  a  greater  number  of  laborers  to  agricul 
ture  ?  f 

Among  139,089  free  inhabitants,  the  average  number 
of  births  from  1838  to  1847  was  4,076  per  year,  or  1 
in  33. 

Among  233,814  slaves,  there  were  5,994  births  only,  or  1 
in  39. 

Is  the  influence  of  comfort  and  good  care  seen  to  prolong 
the  duration  of  the  life  of  the  slaves,  rid,  it  is  said,  of  all 
anxieties  ? 

At  the  same  epoch,  the  births  among  the  freemen  amount 
ed  to  4,076,  the  deaths  to  3,797.  There  were  less  deaths 
than  births. 

On  the  contrary,  the  births  among  the  slaves  amounted 
to  5,994,  the  deaths  to  7,443.  There  were  more  deaths  than 
births. 

Thus,  in  short,  the  only  part  of  the  population  which  in 
creased  in  the  colonies  before  emancipation  was  the  mixed 
breed  ;  it  increased  by  illegitimacy.  Among  the  slaves  were 
few  marriages,  few  births,  and  many  deaths. 

Are  we  to  attribute  these  results  to  the  law  ?  Not  at  all ; 
the  law,  especially  towards  the  last,  encouraged  marriage 
by  every  means,  and  forbade  the  sale  of  husband  and  wife 
separately.  To  the  masters  ?  Not  at  all  ;  they  favored 
marriages,  and  married  slaves  were  the  objects  of  their  pre 
dilection. 

*  Report,  p.  151,  etc. 

t  Official  tables  of  population,  1847,  p.  28,  No.  10. 


246  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

M.  de  Tocqueville  gives  us,  in  his  beautiful  language,  the 
true  reason.* 

"  There  exists  a  profound  and  natural  antipathy  between 
the  institution  of  marriage  and  that  of  slavery.  A  man  does 
not  marry  when  he  is  disabled  through  his  condition  from 
ever  exercising  conjugal  authority  ;  when  his  children  must 
be  born  his  equals,  and  irrevocably  destined  to  the  same 
miseries  as  their  father  ;  when,  having  no  power  over  their 
fate,  he  can  know  neither  the  duties,  nor  rights,  nor  hopes, 
nor  cares  which  accompany  paternity.  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
almost  all  that  induces  the  freeman  to  consent  to  a  legiti 
mate  union  is  lacking  to  the  slave  through  the  sole  fact  of 
slavery.  The  particular  measures  of  which  the  legislator  or 
master  may  make  use  to  stimulate  him  to  do  what  he  pre 
vents  him  from  desiring,  will  therefore  be  always  futile." 

II.  Have  these  melancholy  facts  been  modified  since  the 
abolition  of  slavery  ? 

It  could  not  be  demanded  of  emancipation  to  exercise 
any  influence  on  the  proportion  between  the  sexes  ;  the  fig 
ures  remain  in  this  respect  as  the}7  were.  The  immigration 
of  laborers  has  even  resulted  in  increasing  the  number  of 
men,  without  bringing  in  an  equal  number  of  women. 

The  tables  of  population  having,  since  1848,  confounded 
all  classes,  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  whether  the  differ 
ence  pointed  out  between  the  number  of  births  and  deaths 
among  the  whites  and  that  among  the  blacks  has  subsisted. 
Notwithstanding,  if  we  rely  on  a  general,  and  consequently 
approximative,  comparison  between  the  total  aggregates 
of  the  colonial  population  in  1836,  1846,  and  1856,  without 
including  the  number  of  immigrants,  we  ascertain  that  this 
population,  which  diminished  during  the  first  period,  in 
creased,  on  the  contrary,  during  the  second. 

*  Report  on  the  proposition  of  M.  de  Tracy,  Proces-verbaux  of  the  Cham 
ber  of  Deputies,  Session  of  1840,  p.  39.  See  also  the  report  of  M.  de  Broglie, 
p.  135. 


POPULATION,  FAMILY,  SOCIAL   CONDITION.  247 

1836          ...        ,.         .         ...     376,296 

1846 374,548 

1856  .     '    ,         .         .         .         .     387,821* 

At  Martinico,  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  rose  in 

1848 447 

1849 135 

1850 1,051 

At  Guadaloupe,  the  excess  of  deaths  was  in 

1848 259 

1849 196 

The  excess  of  births  was  in 

1850 513 

Thus,  from  the  very  beginning,  in  these  two  colonies,  the 
law  of  population  resumes  its  regular  course,  —  slavery  de 
populated,  freedom  populates  the  land. 

The  same  tables  make  no  distinction  between  legitimate 
and  illegitimate  births.  These  last  must  still  be  numerous, 
since  the  repugnance  between  the  two  classes  is  the  same, 
and  since  the  number  of  celibates  continues  to  prevail  over 
that  of  married  persons. 

But  marriages,  legitimations,  and  acknowledgments  have 
increased  in  a  most  startling  proportion. 

In  ten  years,  from  1838  to  1841,  there  were  1,154  slave 
marriages,  or  about  250  a  year,  of  which  29  were  in  Marti- 
riico,  61  in  Guadaloupe,  24  in  Guiana,  and  135  in  Bourbon. 
With  that  of  marriages  between  free  persons  —  6,175  — 
the  total  amount  was  7,929.  In  nine  years,  from  1848  to 
1856,  there  were  38,468  marriages  ;  the  first  years  saw 
from  1,000  to  3,000  marriages  contracted  between  freed 
persons  in  the  colonies,  instead  of  50  or  60  between  the 
slaves,  j"  The  average  is  naturally  less  since  this  first  flood. 
It  is  still,  if  we  compare  1846  with  1856,  at  Martinico, 

*  Notices  of  1840,  Official  Tables  for  1846  and  1850. 
f  Revue  coloniale,  1852,  p.  284. 


248  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

631,  instead  of  46 ;    at  Guadaloupe,  901,  instead  of  101 ;  at 
Guiana,  138,  instead  of  IT  ;  at  Bourbon,  62T,  instead  of  225. 

At  the  same  time,  according  to  another  document;  which 
verifies  the  results  accomplished  from  May,  1848,  to  Au 
gust,  1855,  in  the  three  principal  colonies  only,*  the  num 
ber  of  legitimations  during  these  six  years  has  attained 
nearly  20,000,  that  of  acknowledgments  nearly  30,000. 

40,000  marriages,  20,000  legitimated  children,  30,000  ac 
knowledged  children,  —  such  is  the  glorious  gift  offered,  in 
less  than  ten  years,  to  colonial  society  by  emancipation. 
We  may  close  our  chapter  with  statistics  like  these,  and 
this  is  its  conclusion.  On  the  same  day,  at  the  same  hour, 
the  colonies  witnessed  the  birth  of  two  divine  things,  — 
liberty  and  the  family  ! 

III.  We  will  add  a  few  more  words  on  the  happiness  of 
these  families  made  free. 

It  may  seem  superfluous  to  ask  whether  they  are  happier. 
Moreover,  a  dangerous  confusion  arises,  which  should  be 
avoided.  Freedom  and  happiness  are  two  different  things. 
They  even  appear  to  exclude  each  other ;  for  freedom  is 
struggle  :  is  not  happiness  repose  ?  This  confusion  is  ha 
bitual  in  the  colonies.  It  was  said  of  the  slaves,  "  They 
are  happier  than  if  they  were  free."  It  is  said  of  the 
freedmen,  "They  were  happier  when  they  were  slaves. " 
Once  more,  the  question  is  not  of  felicity,  but  independence  ; 
not  of  the  belly,  but  the  soul  ;  not  of  a  being  that  eats  arid 
sleeps,  but  a  being  that  thinks,  wills,  and  loves. 

It  is  in  vain  to  draw  the  most  seductive  pictures  of  what 
is  called  the  patriarchal  life  of  the  plantations  ;  the  true 
picture  of  the  colonies  is  sketched  in  a  few  bold  strokes  in 
a  letter  from  Bailly  de  Suffren  to  Madame  d'Alais,  written 
from  Fort  Royal,  February  8,  ITTQ.f 

"  The   country  is  most  beautiful,  —  nature,  always   ani- 

*  Revue  coloniak,  1856,  p.  310. 

f  Letters  published  by  M.  Ortolan,  Moniteur,  Nov.  2,  1859. 


POPULATION,  FAMILY,  SOCIAL  CONDITION.  249 

mate,  keeps  the  trees  and  plants  in  continual  vegetation. 
Almost  all  have  flowers  and  fruit  at  the  same  time.  All 
that  is  necessary  to  the  nourishment  of  man  comes  of  itself. 
Foreign  productions  alone  are  forced  by  industrious  avarice 
to  yield,  such  as  sugar  and  coffee,  which  exact  great  labor. 
The  inhabitants  may  be  considered  as  divided  into  two 
classes,  —  hard  masters,  and  slaves  brutalized  by  slavery. " 

What  was  true  in  17 19  was  true  in  1839,  was  true  in 
1848.  The  masters  were  not  willingly  hard  ;  but  was  not 
labor  imposed  without  remuneration,  under  the  most  severe 
penalties,  a  hard  condition  ?  They  did  not  wish  to  brutalize 
their  slaves,  but  it  was  for  their  interest  that  they  should 
pass  as  brutish  and  incapable  of  freedom  ;  and  is  not  ser 
vitude  brutalizing  of  itself?  It  impels  to  theft,  for  the 
slave  lives  in  the  midst  of  luxury  without  possessing  any 
thing  ;  to  idleness,  for  labor,  always  painful  to  man,  be 
comes  hateful  to  him  as  soon  as  he  is  forced  to  it ;  to  false 
hood,  through  fear  of  punishment ;  to  drunkenness,  because 
it  produces  the  momentary  forgetfulness  of  sufferings  ;  to 
debauchery,  because,  in  a  climate  which  stimulates  the  pas 
sions,  to  say  nothing  of  the  masters  who  excite  them,  it  is 
the  only  enjoyment  which  demands  neither  money,  which 
the  slave  has  not,  nor  the  permission  which  it  is  necessary 
to  solicit  for  marriage. 

A  comparison  strikes  me  forcibly.  There  is  a  horror  of 
the  Black  Code,  which  ruled  the  colonies  from  1685  to  the 
statutes  of  the  Restoration.  It  is  affirmed  that  its  rigors 
fell  into  disuse.  I  believe  it,  but  the  same  is  true  of  its  be 
neficent  provisions.  When  the  ordinances  of  1833,  1839, 
and  1846,  and  the  statutes  of  1845,  were  prepared  with  so 
much  care,  it  was  regarded  as  a  great  good  to  re-enforce 
several  of  the  humane  and  Christian  articles  of  the  Black 
Code  ;*  its  framers  dared  not  go  as  far  even  as  this  stigma- 

*  Or  the  ordinance  of  Oct.  15,  1786,  cited  by  the  statute  of  July  18,  1845, 
Art.  2. 

11* 


250  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

tized  law,  for  example,  to  punish  the  master  who  debauched 
his  slave.  Thus,  despite  the  law,  despite  good  intentions, 
slavery  had  inevitably  produced  disorders  and  evils  which 
it  was  sought  to  prevent  in  1685,  and  which  were  still  to  be 
cured  in  1845,  two  centuries  after. 

Freedom  does  not  destroy  in  a  moment  the  vices  engen 
dered  by  three  centuries  of  concubinage,  humiliation,  and 
oppression  ;  but  these  vices  are  no  longer  a  sort  of  necessity 
of  position. 

Is  not  this  great  happiness  ? 

But  perhaps  the  slaves  do  not  avail  themselves  of  it ;  per 
haps  they  return  to  a  vagrant,  idle,  depraved,  savage  life  ? 
Do  they  seek  to  instruct  themselves  ?  Are  they  seen  at 
church,  or  in  prison  ?  We  have  viewed  the  state  of  crimi 
nality,  we  will  see  the  progress  of  religion  and  instruction. 

Is  it  necessary  to  take  the  word  happiness  absolutely  in 
its  lowest  sense  ?  Is  it  believed  that  the  comfort  of  the 
freedmen  is  less  than  was  that  of  the  slaves  ? 

We  are  not  always  to  take  model  plantations  as  standards 
of  comparison.  Let  us  not  forget  that  wealthy  proprietors 
were  a  first  exception,  virtuous  proprietors  a  second  excep 
tion,  proprietors  living  on  and  managing  their  estates  a 
third  exception.  The  bulk  of  the  slaves  were  divided  into 
small  groups  of  ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  at  most,*  let  to  others 
or  laboring  on  the  plantations  of  proprietors  too  poor  to  es 
tablish  hospitals,  and  to  feed  or  clothe  their  slaves  properly. 

If  a  statute  (statute  of  July  18,  1845,  Art.  1),  an  ordi 
nance  (ordinance  of  June  5,  1846),  a  circular  from  the  Min 
istry  (June  13,  1846),  and  orders  from  the  Governors  (Oc- 

*  At  Martinico  there  are  335  small  sugar  plantations  to  60  large  ones ;  at 
Guadaloupe  the  number  of  small  estates  is  still  greater;  at  Bourbon  there  were 
in  1838, 

196  owners  of  from  50  to  500  slaves. 
1,150        "  "         10   "   50        " 

4,063        "  "          1    "    10        " 

5,409  (Broglie,  p.  242.) 


POPULATION,  FAMILY,  SOCIAL  CONDITION.  251 

tober,  1848),  were  needed  to  prescribe  that  the  master 
should  give  his  slave  six  pounds  of  tapioca  flour  and  three 
and  a  half  pounds  of  codfish  and  salt  meat  a  week  (Art.  1), 
and  two  shirts,  a  pair  of  trousers,  a  jacket,  and  a  hat  every 
six  months  (Art.  T),  it  was  apparently  because  the  common 
allowance  of  food  and  clothing  remained  almost  everywhere 
below  these  modest  proportions. 

One  day  in  the  week  was  generally  accorded  them  instead 
of  their  food  ;  and  such  was  the  superiority  of  free  over  ser 
vile  labor,  let  us  say  in  passing,  together  with  the  fertility 
of  the  soil,  that  the  day's  earnings  sufficed  to  support  the 
slave  a  week. 

This  still  suffices,  it  is  said,  and  is  precisely  the  reason 
why  the  freedman  does  not  work.  Few  wants,  little  labor. 
He  satisfies  his  needs,  then  reposes.  To  this  I  have  noth 
ing  to  say,  except  that  he  does  like  the  immense  majority 
of  mankind.  After  all,  the  want  is  the  motive  and  measure 
of  the  labor. 

But  in  the  state  of  freedom  the  wants  increase  daily,  and 
to  satisfy  them  comes  increase  of  labor.  This  is  what  hap 
pens  to  the  negro  who  has  a  taste  for  comfort,  luxury,  even 
for  dress  ;  he  labors  to  enjoy,  and  at  the  same  time  to  pay 
for  these.  Meanwhile,  the  freedman  participates  in  the 
collective  burdens  ;  he  pays  imposts  and  town  dues,  and 
to  pay,  to  spend,  it  is  necessary  to  labor. 

Is  material  proof  demanded  ? 

It  results  from  several  documents. 

We  might  compare  the  land-taxes,  but  the  statistics  are 
not  at  our  disposal. 

Two  elements  remain  :  — 

The  tables  of  population  and  culture  include  the  number 
of  cattle  in  the  colonies.  It  is  remarked  that  the  num 
ber  of  mules,  asses,  and  horses  has  decreased,  because 
they  have  been  economized  or  have  been  replaced  by  ma 
chinery,  while  that  of  hogs  and  goats  has  increased ;  now 


252  THE   FKENCH   COLONIES. 

the  hog  and  goat  are  the  fortune  of  the  small  freeholder,  on 
the  lowest  round  of  the  ladder. 

Another  item  of  information  is  more  significant, — the 
amount  and  nature  of  the  importations,  from  which  may  be 
deduced  the  influence  of  emancipation  on  the  consumption 
of  the  products  of  the  mother  country. 

In  1848  and  1849,  the  commodities  that  advanced  in  the 
midst  of  the  general  decline  were  wines  and  tobaccos,  wheat- 
flour,  lard  and  salt  meats,  soaps  and  oils,  cotton  cloths,  um 
brellas,  watches,  hats,  and  shoes.  The  former  slave  wishes  to 
drink  and  smoke,  to  eat  better,  to  wash  better,  to  dress 
better,  to  imitate  the  gentleman  who  carries  an  umbrella, 
not  to  go  always  with  bare  head  and  feet.  He  takes  a  par 
ticular  pride  in  torturing  his  feet  in  shoes,  which  may  be 
ridiculous,  but  is  easily  understood,  if  we  remember  that 
letters-patent,  of  1123,  revived  —  would  one  believe  it?  — 
by  an  ordinance  of  May  18,  1819,  forbade  the  slave  to  wear 
coverings  for  the  foot. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  change  in  the  manners  of 
the  newly  affranchised  individuals  influences  production, 
and  the  movement  of  commerce.  On  one  hand,  much  labor 
is  done  outside  of  agriculture,  the  products  of  which  figure 
only  in  official  statistics,  and  do  not  go  to  swell  the  column 
of  exports  ;  on  the  other,  many  small  resources  which  did 
not  formerly  exist  create  a  demand  for  imports.  As  we 
have  already  said,  labor  has  rather  been  transformed  than 
diminished.  The  wealth  is  not  destroyed,  it  is  only  differ 
ently  divided.  Whatever  may  be  said  in  dispute  of  the 
arguments  to  be  drawn  from  the  two  statistical  statements 
of  imports  and  exports  which  we  have  previously  cited,  the 
first  proves  that  these  idle  people  produce  largely,*  the 
second  proves  that  these  poor  people  consume  largely. f 

*  But  the  increase  of  wines  in  the  four  colonies  bears  only  upon  1849;  the 
amount  fell  again,  and  has  since  remained  below  that  of  1847,  even  at  Bourbon. 
(See  General  Table  of  Customs,  pp.  58,  59.) 

t  Revue  coloniale,  1851,  p.  195. 


POPULATION,   FAMILY,   SOCIAL   CONDITION.  253 

But  perhaps,  while  satisfying  their  appetites,  the  slaves 
return  to  the  nomadic,  idle,  savage  life  ?  Do  they  seek  to 
be  instructed  ?  Are  they  seen  at  church,  in  school,  or  in 
prison  ?  We  have  witnessed  the  condition  of  criminality, 
Let  us  examine  the  progress  of  religion  and  instruction. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

RELIGION,  INSTRUCTION. 

"  Therein  is  the  safety  of  our  colonies."  — BROGLIE,  p.  125. 

"  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  freemen."  —  DE  TOCQUEVILLE,  p.  41. 

§  1.    BEFORE  THE  ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY. 

I  THINK  I  can  affirm  that  no  one  in  the  colonies  was  hap 
pier  at  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  after  the  slaves 
themselves,  than  the  priests  worthy  the  name.  Among 
them,  the  great  majority  were  opposed  to  slavery.  It  fet 
tered  the  ministry,  and  degraded  the  conduct  of  those  even 
whose  conscience  it  did  not  wound. 

If  I  were  asked  what  is  most  beautiful  on  earth,  I  should 
answer,  Christianity !  If  I  were  asked  what  appears  to  me 
most  odious  among  Christian  nations,  I  should  answer, 
Slavery ! 

But  I  should  directly  add :  Slavery  is  impossible  with 
Christianity. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  again  and  again  repeated  that  slavery 
was  introduced  into  the  French  colonies  by  the  monarchy 
and  the  clergy. 

Montesquieu,  who  combats  slavery  with  so  much  force 
and  spirit,  has  written,  after  Father  Labat :  *  — 

"  Louis  XIII.  troubled  himself  extremely  about  the  law 
which  rendered  the  negroes  of  his  colonies  slaves ;  but 
when  it  had  been  fully  gotten  into  his  head  that  this  was 
the  surest  way  to  convert  them,  he  consented  to  it." 

This  error  in  so  great  a  writer  is  incomprehensible.     The 

*  Esprit  des  lois,  Liv.  XV.  Chap.  IV.  p.  182.     Father  Labat,  Nouveaux  Voyages 
aiix  ties  de  FAmerique,  Tom.  II.  p.  114,  1772. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      255 

first  legislative  act  that  emanated  from  the  mother  country 
concerning-  the  slave-trade  is  dated  November  11,  1673,  thir 
ty  years  after  the  death  of  Louis  XIII.* 

It  is  also  commonly  repeated  that  the  Dominican  Las 
Casas  gave  the  fatal  counsel  to  introduce  negroes  into  the 
Antilles  to  relieve  the  natives.  A  single  historian,  Herrera, 
long  subsequent  to  Las  Casas,  has  accredited  this  calumny. 
In  the  discussions  which  he  was  forced  to  sustain  against  the 
slavery  of  the  Indians  with  Quevedo,  Bishop  of  Darien,  or 
with  the  confessor  and  historian  of  Charles  V.,  Sepulveda, 
this  opinion  is  found  neither  on  his  lips  nor  on  those  of  his 
adversaries.  He  wrote  his  eloquent  protests  in  1514.  Ne 
groes  were  already  sold  at  Seville  in  1403,  at  Lisbon  in 
1442  ;  there  were  slaves  at  St.  Domingo  in  1500  ;  Charles  V. 
accorded  the  privilege  of  the  slave-trade  to  the  Flemings  in 
ISll.f 

It  is  not,  therefore,  a  Christian  king,  it  is  not  a  monk, 
whom  we  are  to  accuse  of  having  originated  slavery. 

Who  then,  in  fine,  introduced  slavery  into  the  colonies  ? 

This  point  of  history  is  very  obscure  ;  it  is  never  known 
who  has  sown  tares  in  a  field,  and  no  one  boasts  of  having 
been  the  originator  of  evil.  Nevertheless,  it  is  possible  to 
seize  in  ancient  documents  —  and  particularly  in  the  col 
lection  of  printed  acts  and  manuscript  notes  made  by  M. 
Moreau  de  Saint  Mery,  and  bequeathed  to  the  Archives  of 
the  Colonies,  J  and  in  the  archives  of  the  Community  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  so  long  charged  with  the  religious  service  of 
the  colonies  §  —  some  indices  which  will  set  us  on  the 
track  of  the  true  origin  of  slavery  in  the  colonies. 

*  Lacour,  Hisioire  de  la  Guadeloupe,  Tom.  I.  Chap.  IX.  p.  104. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  102.  —  Moehler,  translated  by  the  Abbe"  de  la  Treiche.  —  (Euvres  ae 
Johannes  Genesius  Sepulveda,  4  vols.  in  fol.  A  fine  copy  is  in  existence  in  the 
valuable  library  of  M.  Cousin.  —  Robertson's  History  of  America,  Book  III. 

J  I  am  indebted  for  the  knowledge  to  the  kindness  of  the  present  keeper  of 
the  archives,  the  worthy  and  intelligent  successor  of  Moreau,  M.  Pierre  Margry. 

§  These  archives  have  been  opened  to  me  with  a  liberality  for  which  I  can 
not  show  myself  too  grateful,  by  the  Rev.  P6re  Schwindenhammer,  Superior, 
and  Pfere  Levava??eur. 


256  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

These  documents  prove  that  the  clergy  had  no  share 
in  it. 

We  scarcely  ever  go  farther  back  than  the  edict  of  1685, 
known  under  the  name  of  the  Black  Code,  -issued  in  the 
same  year  with  another  deplorable  law,  the  revocation  of 
the  edict  of  Nantes.  This  edict,  with  which  the  son  of 
Colbert,  the  Marquis  de  Seignelay,  and  King  Louis  XIV 
are  so  justly  reproached,  came  to  correct  the  abuses  of 
slavery,  while  unhappily  sanctioning  some  few  of  them  ; 
it  resembles  rather  the  laws  of  1845,  which  reformed 
slavery,  than  the  law  of  1802,  which  re-established  it.  It 
is  necessary  to  refer  to  prior  documents. 

The  act  of  Association  of  the  Lords  of  the  American 
Islands  (1626)  is  a  contract  by  which  M.  d'Enambuc  and 
his  associates  engage  to  form  a  capital  of  45,000  livres,  and 
to  freight  three  ships  to  colonize  the  islands  of  St.  Christo 
pher,  Barbadoes,  and  others,  at  the  entrance  of  Peru,  from 
the  llth  to  the  18th  degree  of  latitude,  in  order  to  instruct  the 
inhabitants  of  the  said  islands  in  the  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and 
Roman  religion,  as  well  as  to  traffic  there. 

When  the  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  created  Grand  Master 
of  Navigation  in  1626,  secured  the  authorization  of  this 
first  company  in  the  same  year,  the  letters-patent  declared 
that  the  first  end  of  the  enterprise  was  to  plant  the  Christian 
faith  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the  honor  of  the  Icing,  and  was 
authorized  on  condition  of  carrying  priests  and  of  cultivat 
ing  and  working  in  all  sorts  of  mines  and  metals,  in  consid 
eration  of  a  duty  of  one  tenth  to  the  state.  The  question 
was  not  of  slaves,  but  of  European  laborers. 

The  new  contract  of  February  12,  1635,  which  extended 
the  privilege  of  the  company  from  the  10th  to  the  30th 
degree,  contained  analogous  measures.  Conversion  re 
mained  the  principal  end  (Art.  II.).  The  company  was  to 
settle  4,000  persons  in  twenty  years  (Art.  III.).  All  of 
these  were  to  be  Frenchmen  and  Catholics  (Art.  IV.).  But 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      257 

here  are  two  very  significant  articles  :  —  "Art.  XI.  The  de 
scendants  of  the  colonists  and  the  converted  savages  shall 
be  reputed  native-born  Frenchmen,  capable  of  all  charges, 
honors,  successions,  and  donations."  "Art.  XIII.  Artisans 
shall,  after  six  years,  be  reputed  master-workmen,  and 
eligible  to  open  shops  in  any  of  the  cities  of  France,  even 
at  Paris,  after  ten  years." 

It  appears  that  the  conditions  were  at  first  fulfilled,  since 
an  edict  of  March,  1642,  confirms  the  company,  and  de 
clares  that  it  has  introduced  7,000  colonists,  instead  of 
4,000,  with  a  good  number  of  monks. 

It  is  known  that  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  by  a  bull  of  May, 
1493,  addressed  to  the  kings  of  Castile,  forbade  any  other 
than  Spaniards  to  approach  the  American  islands,  under 
pain  of  excommunication.* 

On  the  demand  of  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  Pope  Urban 
VIII.  raised  these  censures,  and,  July  12,  1635,  gave  power 
to  four  Dominican  monks  to  repair  thither, f  under  the  pro 
tection  of  the  king  of  France,  —  a  power  which  was  con 
firmed  a  number  of  times  to  the  same  order,  then  shared 
with  several  others.  Father  Du  Tertre,  from  whom  we 
borrow  these  details,  made  part  of  the  second  expedition 
of  Spanish  missionaries.  Before  this  permission,  before  the 
settlement  of  Frenchmen,  Dominican  monks  had  already 

*  Father  Du  Tertre,  Histoire  generate^  1st  ed.,  1654,  p.  30,  gives  a  portion  of 
the  text  of  this  curious  bull:  "  Quibuscumque  personis,  cujuscumque  dignitatis, 
etiam  imperialis  et  regalfs  status,  gradus,  ordinis,  vel  conditionis,  sub  excoin- 
municationis  latas  sententise  poena,  quani  eo  ipso,  si  contra  fecerint,  incurrant, 
districtius  inhibemus,  ne  ad  insulas  et  terras  farinas  inventas,  et  inveniendas, 
detectas  et  detegendas,  versus  occidentem  et  meridem,  fabricando  et  construendo 
lineam,  a  polo  artici  ad  polum  antarticum,  sive  terras  firmas  et  insulae  inventas 
et  inveniendas  sint  versus  Indiam,  aut  aliam  quamcunque  partem,  qua;  linea  distet 
a  qualibet  insularum  quse  vulgariter  nuncupantur  de  los  Azores  y  CapoVerd,  cen 
tum  leucis  versus  occidentem  et  meridem,  ut  prsefertur,  pro  mercibus  habendis, 
vel  quavis  alia  de  causa  accedere  praesumant,  absque  vestra  ac  hasredum  et  suc- 
cessorum  vestronim  licencia  speciali." 

f  Fathers  Pelican,  Griffon.  Nicolas,  and  the  excellent  Father  Raymond,  who 
devoted  himself  to  protecting  and  evangelizing  the  Caribs.  Du  Tertre,  p.  29. 

Q 


258  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

attempted  to  evangelize  the  Antilles,  and  had  met  their 
death.*  The  islands  had  martyrs  before  having  colonists. 

On  the  16th  of  August,  1661,  the  privilege  of  the  Company 
of  the  Islands  was  revoked.  It  had  degenerated;  instead 
of  working  the  lands,  it  sold  them  ;  instead  of  civilizing  the 
savages,  it  exterminated  them,  despite  the  remonstrances 
of  the  missionaries.  It  was  necessary  to  reconstitute  an 
other,  —  the  West  India  Company. 

The  edict  of  May  28 -July  31,  1664,  which  approves  it, 
and  accords  (Art.  XVI.)  a  premium  of  30  livres  per  ton  to 
the  colonies  and  40  livres  per  ton  imported,  continues  to 
make  the  interest  of  religion  its  first  care  (Art.  I.),  and,  in 
assuring  to  the  associates  seignorial  rights  (Art.  XXIII.), 
repeats  that  artisans  and  converted  savages  shall  be  reputed 
native-born  and  French  citizens.  Thus,  very  far  from  organ 
izing  servile  labor  in  view  of  compulsory  conversion,  all 
these  edicts  proclaim  ennoblement  by  labor,  and  provide  for 
the  employ  of  no  other  workmen  than  the  colonists  and 
the  natives. 

But  there  is  not  a  single  spot  on  earth  inhabited  by  men 
where  slavery  does  not  appear  as  a  universal  fact.  The 
savages  had  slaves  through  their  wars  with  each  other  ; 
even,  if  Du  Tertre  is  to  be  believed,  those  Caribs  whom  he 
pictures  as  so  gentle,  so  simple,  so  little  vicious,  so  sociable, f 
although  drunken,  polygamous,  and  anthropophagous,  after 
having  killed  their  enemies,  J  reduced  their  women  to  servi 
tude,  then  married  them,  and,  if  they  had  male  children, 
killed  and  ate  them.  §  The  mountains  were  inhabited  by 
fugitive  slaves.  As  soon  as  the  colony  began  to  be  pro 
ductive,  the  same  historian  relates  that  it  attracted  French 
men  to  dwell  there  and  merchants  to  sell  slaves,  which  are,  as 
it  were,  the  two  bases  of  a  colony.9^ 

The  inhabitants  had   reduced  the  savages  to  servitude  ; 

*  Six  in  1603  and  six  in  1604.     Du  Tertre,  ibid. 

t   P.  397.  J  P.  449.  §  P.  403.  If  P.  26. 


RELIGION  AND   INSTRUCTION  BEFORE   EMANCIPATION.      259 

they  bought  negroes  ;  they  treated  the  hired  whites  like 
slaves  ;  there  were  thus  three  kinds  of  slavery. 

But  we  have  seen  that  the  royal  edicts  anticipated  and 
permitted  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  missionaries  opposed 
the  extermination  of  the  Caribs  with  all  their  might.  "  The 
first  obstacle  to  the  conversion  of  the  savages,'7  said  Du 
Tertre,  "is  the  abhorrence  which  they  have  conceived  for 
the  name  of  Christian,  on  account  of  the  extreme  cruelties 
practised  by  the  Christians  on  them  and  their  fathers/7* 

As  to  the  negroes,  the  same  monk  well  expresses  the 
opinion  of  his  coadjutors,  by  stigmatizing  the  shameful  traffic 
which  the  inhabitants  of  the  Indies  t  make  of  their  fellow-he- 
ings,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  treat  these  poor  wretches, 

neither  more  nor  less  than  we  treat  horses  in  France, 

beating  them  on  the  naked  flesh,  neither  more  nor  less  than  the 

Turks, and  saying,  that  to  beat  a  negro  is  to  feed 

him J  He  then  exclaims,  in  touching  language  : 

"I  must  at  last  ingenuously  confess,  and  with  all  humility 
adore,  the  profound  and  inconceivable  mysteries  of  God,  for 
I  know  not  what  this  unhappy  nation  has  done,  that  God 
has  attached  to  it  a  particular  and  hereditary  malediction, 
not  only  the  blackness  and  ugliness  of  the  body,  but 
slavery  and  'servitude.77  § 

Avaricious  and  cruel  passions  were  stronger  than  these 
charitable  sentiments,  which  themselves  were  not  without 
mixture  and  alteration. 

The  negro  slaves  multiplied  in  little  time.  The  Dutch 
expelled  from  Brazil  brought  1,200  to  Guadaloupe  in  1635. 
These  unfortunates  were  sufficiently  numerous  to  necessi 
tate  an  ordinance  of  the  Governor  of  Martinico,  July  13, 
1648,  prescribing  the  cultivation  of  food  for  the  slaves.  On 
June  19,  1664,  M.  de  Tracy,  Lieutenant-General  of  the 
American  Islands,  made  a  regulation  to  prevent  masters 
from  hindering  hired  men  and  negro  slaves  from  going  to 

*  p.  460.  t   P.  473.  t  Pp.  475,  481.  §   P.  480. 


260  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

mass,  under  penalty  of  a  fine  of  120  pounds  of  tobacco,  or, 
in  case  of  a  second  offence,  of  seeing  them  sold,  to  be 
placed  in  more  Christian  hands,  and  to  forbid  their  debauch 
ing  them,  under  penalty  of  from  twenty  to  fifty  blows,  and 
the  branding  of  a  fleur-de-lis  on  the  shoulder. 

We  also  see,  by  an  ignoble  order  of  March  2,  1665,  the 
Council  of  Martinico  negotiate  with  a  certain  negro, 
Francisco,  to  hunt  fugitive  slaves,  with  his  band,  in  consid 
eration  of  1,000  pounds  of  tobacco  and  his  freedom,  arid  the 
same  Council  (October  4,  1667)  punish  the  receiving  of 
negroes,  indigo,  sugar,  cocoa,  ginger,  ivearing  apparel,  uten 
sils,  furniture,  and  other  merchandise,  by  corporal  punish 
ment,  and  a  fine  of  4,000  pounds  of  sugar,  then  (July  17, 
1679)  invent  atrocious  penalties  against  fugitive  slaves, 
such  as  slitting  the  nose,  cutting  the  legs,  etc. 

Thus,  by  an  infallible  and  rapid  logic,  cupidity  and  idle 
ness  had  engendered  oppression  and  barbarism.  It  was 
then  that  the  edict  of  March,  1685,  or  the  Black  Code,  in 
tervened,  designed,  says  the  preamble,  'to  maintain  the  dis 
cipline  of  the  Church,  and  to  regulate  what  concerns  the 
condition  and  quality  of  slaves. 

This  edict  did  wrong  in  not  abolishing  slavery,  but  it  did 
not  create,  and  was  designed  to  alleviate  it.  It  left  subsist 
ing  odious  penalties,  —  whipping,  slitting  of  ears,  branding 
of  lilies  on  the  shoulder,  hamstringing,  death,  —  penalties 
which  justly  shock  us,  as  well  as  the  penalties  inflicted  by 
more  ancient  edicts,  such  as  piercing  through  the  tongue 
of  blasphemers  with  a  hot  iron,  slitting  the  tongue,  slit 
ting  the  lips  in  case  of  a  second  offence  (edicts  of  De 
cember  5,  1487,  and  July  10,  1493),  and  whipping  till  blood 
was  drawn  for  offences  of  the  chase  (edict  of  March, 
1515).  But  the  Black  Code  gives  to  the  slaves  baptism 
(Art.  2),  marriage  (Art.  8),  religious  worship  (Art.  3), 
Sunday  (Art.  4),  burial  in  consecrated  ground  (Art.  14), 
emancipation  (Art.  55),  and  recognizes  to  the  freed  slaves 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.     201 

the  same  rights  as  to  freemen  (Art.  59).  It  prescribes  the 
employment  of  Christian  commanders,  punishes  debauch 
ery,  permits  slaves  to  be  appointed  guardians,  etc.  This 
act  is  a  shame,  and  nevertheless  a  progress.  After  a  cen 
tury  and  a  half,  men  would  be  scarcely  more  advanced, 
milder,  but  no  more  just ;  they  would  still  attempt  to  pre 
vent  evil  from  being  evil,  but  again  without  succeeding. 
Several  articles  of  this  Code  and  of  the  letters  patent  of 
December,  1123,  would  be  still  in  force,  and  a  commentator 
of  1844,  in  relating  the  provision  by  which  a  master  who 
should  debauch  his  slave  was  punished  by  a  fine  of  300 
livres,  would  content  himself  by  saying,  "  This  article  is 
not  curried  into  effect."  * 

Whatever  may  be  the  consequences,  the  examination  of 
the  origin  of  slavery  proves  that  neither  the  monarchy  nor 
the  clergy  are  responsible  for  its  establishment  in  the  colo 
nies.  It  is  to  the  monarchy,  and  in  part  to  religion,  that 
France  owes  the  colonies.  It  is  not  to  the  government  and 
the  clergy  that  the  colonies  owe  servitude.  They  are 
guilty  of  having  tolerated,  then  shamefully  practised  it.f 
This  is  enough,  arid  too  much.  It  is  not  true  that  they  in 
troduced  it.  What  called  it  ?  —  the  cupidity  of  the  first 
colonists.  What  introduced  it?  —  the  slave-trade.  Who 
organized  the  slave-trade  ?  —  the  seaports  and  the  mother 
country.  Innocent  of  slavery,  the  government  of  the  mon- 

*  Code  de  Bourbon,  by  Delabarre-Nanteuil,  1844. 

t  Minutes  of  the  meetings  of  the  Company  of  the  Islands,  held  on  the  first 
Friday  of  every  month,  at  the  house  of  M.  Daligre.  Meeting  of  May  5, 1645 :  — 

"The  monks  of  St.  Domingo,  residing  on  the  island  of  Guadaloupe,  demand 
twelve  negroes  for  the  service  of  their  houses.  The  Company  requested  Sieur 
Houel,  governor  of  the  said  island,  to  give  four  of  the  first  negroes  who  should 
come  to  the  island  to  the  said  monks,  who  are  entreated  carefully  to  instruct  in 
the  faith  the  negroes  and  savages  upon  the  said  island. 

"  And  respecting  the  proposition  of  the  said  monks  to  be  empowered  to  have 
a  lot  of  the  negroes  exposed  to  sale  on  their  arrival  in  the  said  island,  by  pay 
ing  the  same  price  as  others,  the  said  Sieur  Houel  shall  be  written  to  to  give 
liberty  to  the  said  monks  to  purchase  the  said  negroes  like  other  private  indi 
viduals."  .Colonial  Archives.) 


262  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

archy  was,  as  we  shall  see,  directly  guilty  of  having  author 
ized  and  encouraged  the  slave-trade  in  the  interest  of  the 
commerce  of  the  ports,  and  it  succeeded  in  coloring  this 
abomination  by  religious  pretexts ;  but  the  responsibility 
of  the  Church  is  here  again  out  of  the  question. 

The  same  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  who  gave  to  the  Antilles,  in 
1635,  missionaries  of  the  order  most  hostile  to  slavery,  pro 
tested  in  1639  against  the  Portuguese,  the  great  organizers 
of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade,  and  a  century  after,  in  1741, 
Benedict  XIV.  called  the  attention  of  Brazil  to  the  same 
•principles,  which  another  century  later,  1839,  Gregory 
XVI.  repeated  to  Europe  and  the  world. 

Thus,  thank  God  !  the  clergy  have  not  propagated  slav 
ery,  but  whatever  motives  may  justify  their  conduct,  it  is 
a  lamentable  misfortune  that  they  did  not  reprove  it  more 
severely,  and  that  they  ended  by  disgracefully  accepting 
it  for  their  own  use. 

Religion  has  been  the  victim  of  this  fault,  which  the 
clergy  have  grievously  expiated,  for  slavery  has  corrupted 
the  priesthood,  and,  even  where  it  has  not  corrupted  it,  has 
fettered  its  preaching,  perverted  its  position,  and  degraded 
its  ministry. 

"  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  freemen,"  said  M.  de 

Tocqueville,  admirably "How  succeed  in  elevating 

and  purifying  the  wishes  of  him  who  does  not  feel  the  re 
sponsibility  of  his  own  act  ?  How  give  the  idea  of  moral 
dignity  to  him  who  is  nothing  in  his  own  eyes  ?  Do  what  we 
may,  it  will  always  be  difficult  to  enlighten  and  spiritualize 
the  religion  of  a  slave,  whose  life  is  filled  with  coarse  and 
incessant  toil,  and  who  is  naturally  and  invincibly  plunged 

into  ignorance  by  the  very  fact  of  his  condition If 

we  look  with  care,  we  shall  be  convinced  that  the  negro  is 
entirely  indifferent  to  religious  truths,  or  else  that  he  makes 
of  Christianity  an  ardent  and  gross  superstition."  * 

*  Report  of  1839,  p.  41. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      2G3 

But,  besides  the  moral  incompatibility,  slavery  opposes 
material  obstacles  to  religious  preaching. 

When  and  how  shall  religious  instruction  be  given  ?  If 
the  priest  asks  of  the  master  an  hour  devoted  to  labor,  will 
he  obtain  it  ?  If  he  asks  of  the  slave  an  hour  devoted  to 
rest,  will  he,  can  he,  obtain  a  hearing  ?  What  will  he  say, 
moreover  ?  Distrusted  by  the  master  if  he  awakens  an 
instinct  of  freedom,  —  distrusted,  detested  by  the  slave  if 
he  makes  himself  the  sanctifier  of  slavery,  —  the  priest  is 
reduced  to  hold  in  turn  one  half  of  the  Gospel  in  slavery, 
and  to  preach  a  lame  justice  and  virtues  not  exacted  by 
Heaven.  Facts  confirm  these  predictions.  I  draw  at  ran 
dom  from  the  documents  around  me,  and  read  in  the  official 
proceedings  of  the  commission  appointed  in  1838*  to  exam 
ine  the  proposition  of  M.  de  Passy,  these  answers  of  the 
witnsses  interrogated  :  — 

"  Parish  priests  have  been  expelled  on  complaint  of  the 
masters,  under  the  pretext  that  they  inculcated  ideas  of 
freedom  on  the  negro  population,  and  the  Catholic  prefects 
have  been  obliged  to  recommend  to  their  priests  to  abstain 
from  all  allusion  to  the  subject  of  liberty." 

"Moreover,"  said  the  Batonnier  of  the  barristers  of  Fort 
Royal  (Martinico),  "the  negroes  have  regarded  the  priests 
as  charged  with  a  mission  to  deceive  them,  and  exclusively 
to  defend  the  interests  of  the  masters.  It  is,  perhaps,  to 
this  that  we  are  to  attribute  their  present  incredulity." 

So  false  a  position  was  not  o£  a  nature  to  inspire  many 
vocations.  The  clergy  of  the  colonies,  therefore,  was  air 
ways  insufficient ;  consequently,  imperfectly  recruited  and 
thus  mingled  with  corrupt  elements,  the  refuse  of  the  dio 
ceses  of  Europe,  it  became  the  disgrace  of  colonial  com 
munities. 

This  calamity  was  averted  as  soon  as  an  appeal  was  made 
to  associations,  the  subjects  of  which,  prepared  by  a  special 

*  Library  of  M.  de  Broglie. 


264  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

education,  easily  replaced,  and  received  in  their  old  age,  were 
moreover  subject  to  more  efficacious  authority  than  that  of 
apostolic  prefects  over  priests  from  every  corner  of  France. 
The  great  labors  of  the  Jesuits,  the  Dominicans,  the  Car 
melites,  the  Capuchins,  the  brothers  of  Saint  Jean-de-Dieu,* 
and  lastly,  the  members  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  at  Guiana,  Martmico,  and  Guadaloupe,  are  not  for 
gotten. 

Not  only  did  these  monks  form  a  pure  and  efficacious 
clergy  for  the  colonies,  but  they  managed  their  plantations 
in  a  manner  to  make  them  models.  A  good  example  which, 
for  my  part,  I  dare  call  a  scandal,  so  repugnant  is  it  to  me 
to  accept  the  idea  of  a  model,  virtuous,  and  lucrative  slav 
ery  practised  by  priestly  sugar  and  coffee  planters. 

In  so  false  a  position  and  despite  aggravated  obstacles, 
sometimes  by  the  reactions  of  the  revolutions  of  the  mother 
country,  at  others  by  difficulties  with  the  local  -governments, 
such  is  the  beneficent  power  of  Christianity,  and  such  the 
zeal  of  the  greater  part  of  its  ministers,  that,  notwithstand 
ing,  much  religious  good  has  been  done  at  all  times  in  the 
colonies  from  the  day  of  their  foundation. 

The  Gospel  rendered  the  masters  milder,  the  slaves  hap 
pier.  Of  all  races,  the  negro  is  perhaps  the  most  eager  for 
religion,  and  the  Catholic  worship,  exclusively  recognized 

*  Commission  of  1839,  Proces-verbaux  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  session 
of  1840,  p.  108:  — 

Delegate  from  Marlimco :  "  On  the  plantations  of  the  monks,  the  number  of 
families  was  greater,  and  the  arrangement  of  labor  more  perfect  ;  and  this  has 
continued.  The  good  effect  produced  by  these  monastic  orders  makes  itself 
felt  wherever  their  useful  influence  is  exercised." 

Delegate  from  Guadaloupe  :  "  I  have  precisely  the  same  testimony  to  render." 

Delegate  from  Guiana :  "  There  were  considerable  plantations  in  Guiana  be 
longing  to  monks.  These  plantations  were  well  administered.  The  monks  had 
even  civilized  the  Indians,  who  are  more  difficult  to  civilize  than  the  negroes." 

Delegate  from  Bourbon :  "  There  never  were  any  monastic  orders  in  the  Isle 
of  Bourbon  [the  delegate  is  here  in  error],  but  the  colonial  workshop  where  re 
ligious  instruction  was  most  common  ranked  highest  of  all  others  in  morals, 
and  labor  there  was  active  and  regular." 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      26o 

by  the  edict  of  1685,  and  since  remaining  that  of  the  major 
ity  of  the  inhabitants,  has  incomparable  attraction  for  them. 
Despite  some  little  distrust,  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
Keligion  not  only  gives  hope  to  wretched  souls,  abandoned, 
if  they  do  not  look  for  a  better  world,  to  the  spirit  of  re 
bellion,  the  desire  of  flight,  the  dejection  of  sadness,  or 
the  stupefaction  of  a  carelessness  maintained  by  deprava 
tion  ;  it  gives,  through  baptism,  godfathers  and  godmothers 
to  beings  without  family  ;  it  elevates  their  freed  conscience 
to  the  serene  heights  of  moral  liberty  ;  it  transforms  their 
misfortune  into  a  merit.*  They  have,  in  the  priests,  de 
fenders,  confidants,  and-  friends  ;  at  the  altar,  they  receive 
equality  before  God  ;  a  family  is  given  them  in  His  name  ; 
festivals  occur  to  break  their  monotonous  existence  ;  — 
the  church  was  the  place  of  refuge  of  the  slaves,  it  was  the 
only  spot  in  the  world  where  they  were  really  free  or  mo 
mentarily  happy. 

It  is  not  useless  to  show,  by  an  extremely  brief  history 
of  religionf  in  each  of  the  slave  colonies,  what  were  its  ca 
lamities,  its  labors,  and  its  progress,  unto  the  moment  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

I.    GUIANA. 

Before  the  Revolution,  the  mission  of  Guiana  was  intrust 
ed  to  the  Jesuits.  They  had  but  a  single  parish  in  Cayenne 
when  visited  by  Father  Labat  in  1694 ;  nevertheless,  their 
labors  had  not  been  sterile.  The  missionaries  had  a  great 
and  salutary  influence  over  the  negroes,  who  were  most  de- 

*  A  merit  often  heroic !  Negroes,  worn  out,  aged,  sure  of  being  punished  on 
the  morrow,  were  seen  to  walk  a  league  at  night,  three  times  a  week,  to  go  to 
catechism. 

t  This  history  is  the  summary  of  published  writings,  such  as  La  Mission  de 
Cayenne,  by  Father  de  Montezon;  Lettres  sur  fesclavage,  by  M.  Dugoujon, 
Apostolic  Prefect  of  Guadaloupe;  V  Esclavage  awx  colonies,  by  M.  Castelli,  Apos 
tolic  Prefect  of  Martinico;  the  Annales  de  la  Propagation  d&la  foi;  and,  lastly, 
MS.  memorials  and  unpublished  letters  addressed  to  the  Department  of  the 
Marine  and  to  the  Community  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
12 


266  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

voted  and  docile  to  those  whom  they  styled  the  Monperes. 
It  is  still  remembered  in  the  colonies,  that,  under  the  gov 
ernment  of  M.  d'Orvilliers,  a  considerable  number  of  ne 
groes  having  gathered  together  on  a  mountain  and  in  the 
forests,  the  planters  and  all  the  troops  marched  against 
them,  but  without  success.  A  general  rising  of  those  who 
had  remained  tranquil  was  feared,  when  a  Jesuit,  Father 
Poque,  went  alone  into  the  midst  of  the  fugitives,  brought 
them  back,  and  effected  a  reconciliation.  These  zealous 
priests  did  not  neglect  the  Indian  tribes,  in  general  gentle, 
laborious,  distrustful  because  they  had  been  deceived,  but 
who  had  been*  and  could  still,  by  better  treatment,  be 
civilized  and  made  useful.  Three  special  missions  were 
organized  for  these  tribes  in  1*782  by  Father  Jean-Xavier- 
Padilla. 

"  The  Indians  descend  the  rivers/'  says  a  missionary, f 
"they  brave  the  waves  in  their  frail  periaguas,  and  present 

their  children  for  baptism It  is  touching  to  see  the 

proud  Indian,  his  neck  adorned  with  a  collar  of  tiger's  or 
alligator's  teeth,  with  bow  arid  arrows  in  one  hand,  and 
tomahawk  in  the  other,  witness  the  baptism  of  his  child 

with  the  greatest  respect, then,  after  the  ceremony, 

joyful,  and  blessing  the  father,  place  his  infant  in  the  little 
periagua  and  dart  again  upon  the  waves." 

The  priests  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  dispatched  after  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  Jesuits  (1773),  under  the  ministry  of  M.  de 
Sartines  (1776),  to  the  number  of  twenty,  with  an  apos 
tolic  prefect,  continued  their  good  work  with  success. 
Thanks  to  this  influence,  the  relations  of  the  two  classes 
were  exceptional  in  this  colony,!  and  so  harmonious  that 
the  first  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  passed  without  disturb- 

*  Aper$u  de  la  situation  des  peuplades  in/Henries  a  la  Guyane  frangaise,  by  M 
Devilly.  Revue  coloniale,  July,  1850,  p.  45. 

f  Mission  de  Sinnamary,  by  M.  Hardy. 

J  Observations  sur  Vetat  de  la  colonie  de  Cayenne,  by  M.  Terrasson,  planter  (MS. 
of  the  Seminary  of  the  Holy  Spirit). 


KELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.     267 

ance.  But  erelong,  labor  being  checked  by  the  causes 
indicated  elsewhere,  the  negroes  dispersed  through  the 
forests.  The  priests,  having  courageously  refused  to  take 
the  oath,  were  arrested,  and  condemned  to  deportation. 
Thirty-two  were  in  fact  deported  from  Guiana,  while  other 
French  priests  were,  on  the  contrary,  deported  to  Guiana, 
arid  came  thither  to  die  of  fever  and  want,  and  to  find  a 
humble,  to-day  venerated  tomb.  The  churches  were  fired. 
The  re-establishment  of  slavery,  in  1802,  finished  what 
emancipation  ^  by  violence,  had  begun.  "A  great  part  of 
the  blacks/7  says  a  colonist,*  "take  refuge  in  the  forests, 
especially  those  who  have  lost  all  principle  of  religion,  and 
become  true  negro  Jacobins.  When  they  have  provisions 
and  see  themselves  in  sufficient  numbers,  they  attempt 
incursions  on  our  settlements,  maltreat  and  assassinate  the 
proprietors,  carry  off  the  faithful  slaves,  and,  not  content 
with  abandoning  themselves  to  plunder,  make  use  of  poi 
son,  a  fearful  weapon  in  their  hands.'7 

During  this  time,  the  deported  priests  were  dispersed  by 
Providence  to  serve,  revive,  or  second,  after  a  thousand  tri 
als,  arrests,  and  shipwrecks,  religion  on  other  points,  some 
at  Guadaloupe,  others  at  Martinico,  one  at  St.  Christopher, 
another  at  St.  Croix. 

Of  all  the  priests  deported,  one  alone,  M.  Legrand,  re 
turned  to  Guiana,  but  not  until  1809,  where  he  exercised  his 
ministry  with  the  title  of  Apostolic  Prefect,  even  under  the 
Portuguese  occupation.  He  wrote,  at  the  close  of  1816,  to 
the  Duke  de  Luxembourg,  Ambassador  of  France  to  Portu 
gal  :  -j-  "I  am  the  only  French  priest  at  Cayenne.  I  do 
what  I  can  in  the  town,  but  the  country  is  almost  aban 
doned.  Besides,  my  age  and  infirmities  give  me  reason  to 
believe  that  the  end  of  my  career  is  not  far  distant.  En 
treat  the  government  to  send  us  co-workers. "  He  had  the 

*  MS.  of  the  Seminary  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

f  Archives  of  the  Seminary  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


268  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

joy  of  witnessing  the  arrival  of  three  priests,  in  November, 
1817,  then  died  in  January,  1818.  Deplorable  administra 
tive  dissensions  retarded  the  effects  of  the  mission,  without 
rendering  them  wholly  fruitless,  — thanks  to  the  impregna 
ble  zeal  of  M.  Guillier,  the  successor  of  M.  Legrand,  —  until 
the  beneficent  administration  of  M.  Jubelin,  who,  happily 
for  the  colony,  governed  six  years  (1829-1835). 

The  brothers  and  sisters  were  re-established,  the  churches 
rebuilt,  the  parishes  increased,  and,  when  the  revolution  of 
1848  broke  .out,  it  had  been  preceded  by  an  evangelization 
which,  although  incomplete,  contributed,  nevertheless,  pow 
erfully  to  the  maintenance  of  the  public  peace. 

II.     MARTINICO. 

We  find  again  at  Martinico  the  same  founders  of  the 
mission, — the  Jesuits,  —  and,  by  a  touching  coincidence, 
the  same  restorers  of  religion  as  at  French  Guiana.  The 
Jesuits  arrived  there  at  the  beginning  of  the  French  occu 
pation  (1649).  In  1694  Father  Labat  found  there  with  them 
the  Dominicans  and  Capuchins,  who  remained  alone  after 
17*73,  with  an  apostolic  prefect  for  each  order.  The  broth 
ers  hospitallers  of  Saint  Jean-de-Dieu  had  established  there 
the  admirable  plantation  of  Saint  Jacques.  The  religious 
condition  was  tolerably  satisfactory  at  the  moment  of  the 
Revolution,  followed  so  speedily  by  English  occupation.  A 
few  priests  remained  during  the.  duration  of  this  occupation. 
We  find  M.  Legrand  there  in  1807,  deported  from  Guiana, 
to  which  he  was  soon  to  return.  Several  years  passed  with 
a  disorganized  clergy,  under  superiors  whose  delegation 
was  contestable,  until  the  moment  when  the  venerable  head 
of  the  Community  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  M.  Bertout,  —  who 
may  be  called  the  spiritual  father  of  the  colonies,  for  he 
raised  up  the  priesthood  in  all  of  them,  —  sent  two  priests 
in  1819,  and  obtained  the  appointment,  by  an  ordinance  of 
December  31,  1821,  of  two  apostolic  prefects,  one  for  Mar- 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      2G9 

tinico  and  the  other  for  Guadaloupe.  The  first,  M.  Carraud, 
did  immense  good  there,  which  would  have  been  still  greater 
had  it  not  been  for  the  inadequateness  in  every  respect  of 
nearly  all  the  colonial  clergy,  and  the  administrative  diffi 
culties  which,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  of  1830,  caused 
a  long  and  distressing  interim.  From  1834  to  1848,  the 
prefecture  was  confided  to  a  priest  well  known  for  his  abo 
lition  sentiments,  —  M.  Castelli.  They  were  not  the  only, 
but  the  principal  *  cause  of  the  obstacles  which,  after  having 
fettered  his  ministry,  determined  his  removal.  He  had  the 
pleasure  of  being  restored  to  his  functions  at  the  moment 
when  the  slaves  were  about  to  be  freed.  Despite  these 
trials  and  faults,  good  was  done.  Religion  had  long  since 
effected  in  many  parishes  the  habits  of  prayer,  instruction, 
and  moralization  which  the  law  came  to  enjoin  ;  and,  if  the 
preparation  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  wTas  not  further 
advanced  at  Martinico,  it  was  not  the  majority  of  the  clergy 
of  the  colony  that  were  to  blame  for  it. 

III.     GUADALOUPE. 

With  the  first  colonists, 'MM.  Duplessis  and  POlive,  four 
Dominicans  landed  in  1635.  The  story  of  the  efforts  of  one 
of  them,  Father  Raymond,  to  protect  the  unfortunate  Caribs, 
has  been  preserved  to  us  in  a  very  curious  manuscript,  f  and 
in  the  history  of  Father  Du  Tertre,  another  Dominican  sent 
shortly  after.  When  the  island  was  sold  to  M.  de  Boisseret 
and  M.  Houel,  the  latter,  after  a  difficulty  with  the  Domin 
icans,  invited  thither  the  barefoot  Carmelites  of  Touraine 
(1664).  Father  Labat  also  found  Jesuits  and  Capuchins 
there  thirty  years  after.  The  great  lepers'  hospital  of  Desi- 
rade  was  established  in  1128.  All  the  statements  authorize 
the  belief,  that,  at  the  end  of -the  eighteenth  century,  the 

*  Letter  from  a  missionary,  1841:  "What  completes  his  destruction  is  his 
••<  bolition  opinions,  which  he  has  not  sufficiently  concealed." 

t  Purchased  by  the  author  at  the  sale  of  the  Erdeven  collection. 


270  THE  FRENCH    COLONIES. 

religious  and  moral  condition  of  the  colony  had  made  as 
much  progress  as  its  material  prosperity.  After  the  Revo 
lution,  religion  had  to  pass  through  continual  trials  ;  —  pro 
scribed  and  overthrown  at  first,  then  represented  by  an 
incapable  or  even  scandalous  clergy  ;  at  length  intrusted  for 
long  years  to  the  direction  of  a  respectable  apostolic  pre 
fect,  whose  charity  was  admirable  during  the  yellow-fever 
of  1838,  and  at  the  moment  of  the  terrible  earthquake  of 
1843,  but  timid,  and  instructing  his  clergy  to  repair  to  the 
plantations  only  when  they  were  summoned  there.  As  he 
said  himself  in- his  correspondence,  "The  religious  instruc 
tion  of  the  slave  class  does  not  make  great  progress 

Tire  colonists  of  an  important  part  of  the  colony  seem  to 
have  given  each  other  the  cue  to  receive  neither  the  visits 
of  priests  nor  of  magistrates."  There  was  less  indifference 
or  opposition  at  some  points.  It  seemed,  above  all,  as  if 
the  great  trials  which  overwhelmed  the  colonies  opened 
souls  to  better  resolutions,  encouraged  towards  the  -last  by 
instructions  and  law's  from  the  mother  country.  The  patient 
zeal  of  the  clergy,  directed  by  a  new  superior,  obtained,  in 
fact,  the  most  satisfactory  results,  but  the  ill-will  of  the 
masters  remained  the  same,  wTith  some  noble  exceptions, 
until  the  Revolution  of  1848.  It  was  the  destiny  of  Gua- 
daloupe  to  arrive  at  moral  progress  more  tardily  than  the 
other  colonies,  and  more  tardily  also,  by  an  equitable  coin 
cidence,  at  material  progress. 

IV.    BOURBON. 

The  Isle  of  Bourbon  was  more  fortunate.  When,  a  cen 
tury  after  its  discovery  by  the  Portuguese  Mascarenhas,  it 
was  colonized  by  the  French,  the  Gospel  was  carried  thither 
by  Capuchin  monks  ;  one  of  whom,  Father  Hyacinth,  after 
the  compulsory  departure  of  the  Governor,  in  1675,  gov 
erned  the  island  for  three  years.  The  religious  worship 
was  intrusted  to  the  Lazarists  from  1136,  and  when,  during 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION   BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      271 

the  Revolution,  the  colony  administered  itself,  the  goods  of 
the  Lazarists  were  confiscated,  but  worship  was  not  abol 
ished.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be  said  that  religion  expired. 
The  divorce  law  disorganized  the  families  of  the  whites  ;  if 
it  had  not  the  same  effect  upon  the  blacks,  it  was  because 
marriage  was  unknown  to  them.  The  missionaries  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  found  on  their  arrival,  in  1818,  three  cures  va 
cant  out  of  eleven,  no  instruction,  arid  no  piety  ;  progress 
was  very  slow,  the  chief  obstacle  being  the  opposition  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  masters,  an  opposition  to  which  they 
were  condemned  by  falsity  of  position  rather  than  hardness 
of  heart. 

I  read  still  in  the  correspondence  of  this  epoch  the  same 
state  of  affairs.  A  few  colonists  were  exceptions,  and  are 
models  ;  to  them,  and  above  all  to  their  wives,  the  slaves 
were  a  family  ;  to  others,  they  were  cattle.  When  the  slave 
had  labored  enough  to  pay  for  what  he  was  worth,  he  might; 
die  for  aught  they  cared.  Between  these  two  extremes,  it 
pleased  many  masters  to  choose  among  the  Christian  vir 
tues,  to  detach  from  the  Gospel  the  pages  on  patience  while 
blotting  out  those  on  equality,  and  to  walk  abroad  accom* 
panied  by  two  men,  the  one  bearing  a  crucifix  to  preach 
submission,  the  other  a  lash  to  enforce  it.  They  were  will 
ing  to  accept  the  instruction  which  develops  the  faculties, 
provided  it  did  not  elevate  the  sentiments.  They  were  will 
ing  to  give  an  hour  to  the  school,  provided  it  were  not  taken 
from  the  work. 

Is  it  necessary  to  add,  that  the  superior  authority  did  lit 
tle  for  a  long  time  to  change  a  state  of  affairs  which  seemed 
in  some  sort  admitted  and  without  remedy  ? 

The  faults,  the  vices  of  a  fraction  of  the  clergy  were  re 
sponsible  at  Bourbon,  as  elsewhere,  for  a  part  of  this  deplora 
ble  sterility.  Instead  of  converting  others,  more  than  one 
priest  suffered  himself  to  become  corrupted  ;  above  all,  more 
than  one  suffered  himself  to  become  discouraged.  To  preach 


272  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

chastity  in  such  a  climate,  fraternity  under  such  a  system  ; 
to  talk  of  disinterestedness  to  men  burning  to  make  a  for 
tune,  and  of  divine  goodness  to  wretches  bowed  down  by 
force  to  toil  ;  to  please  two  parties  which  detested  each 
other,  to  be  suspicious  to  none  ;  to  inculcate  the  subtle 
truths  of  the  Gospel  on  young  Creoles,  bachelors  of  the  col 
leges  of  Paris,  and  young  Africans  reared  on  the  coast  of 
Zanguebar,  mingled  with  Pariahs  from  India  and  China,  — 
ah  !  this  was,  it  will  be  granted,  an  ungrateful  mission  ! 

It  demanded  Christian  heroes,  —  they  were  found  at  Bour 
bon.  The  Abbe  Monnet,  who  arrived  in  the  island  in  1840, 
resolved  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  the  moralization 
of  the  blacks  ;  he  obtained  the  co-operation  of  some  of  his 
confreres,  and  his  success  won  a  signal  notice  in  the  report 
of  the  Duke  de  Broglie,  who  thus  sums  up  the  testimony 
of  the  Apostolic  Prefect  of  Bourbon,  heard  by  the  Colonial 
Commission,  April  29,  1842.* 

"  Instruction  has  truly  taken  a  new  impulse  at  St.  Denis 
and  the  surrounding  localities.  The  Abbe  Monnet  has  dis 
played  admirable  zeal  and  rare  intelligence.  There  are 
to-day  not  less  than  10,000  blacks  catechised  by  his  cures. 

He  has  found  B powerful  auxiliaries  in  a  few  pious 

negroes,  who  have  become  sufficiently  advanced  in  religious 
instruction  to  teach  the  Catechism  and  repeat  the  lessons 
on  the  plantations.  For  three  years  past  the  number  of 
first  communions  has  been  considerable,  even  among  adults. 

The  masters  take  the  initiative  most  honorably  in 

this  respect A  great  impulse  has  been  given  to  mar 
riages More  than  400  have  been  contracted  in  two 

years  among  the  black  population.7' 

The  movement  which  rejoiced  some  masters  filled  others 
with  consternation.  We  know  that  M.  Monnet,  as  is  said 
in  a  correspondence,  "  like  a  true  priest  of  Jesus  Christ, 
desired  nothing  so  much  as  to  see  the  day  of  liberty  and 

*   Report,  p.  153. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  BEFORE  EMANCIPATION.      273 

spiritual  regeneration  dawn  at  length  upon  the  unhappy 
negroes.'7  On  his  return  to  Bourbon  in  1847,  after  a  short 
sojourn  in  France,  the  opposition  of  the  colonists  was  such 
that  the  Governor  ordered  him  directly  to  set  out  again  for 
home.  He  died  on  his  way  to  evangelize  Madagascar. 

Happily,  his  work  was  not  abandoned.  God  raised  up, 
no  longer  a  few  men,  but  a  whole  community,  for  its  contin 
uance  and  extension. 

A  few  years  subsequent  to  1830,  there  were  found  in  the 
Seminary  Saint-Sulpice,  at  Paris,  a  Creole  from  Bourbon,  a 
Creole  from  Mauritius,  arid  a  Creole  from  St.  Domingo.* 
They  confided  to  each  other  their  idea  of  devoting  them 
selves  to  the  evangelization  of  the  negroes.  This  was  the 
origin  of  the  Community  of  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Mary. 
"  The  general  end  of  our  society/7  wrote  one  of  the  three 
founders  with  sublime  simplicity,  in  an  unpublished  docu 
ment,  "  is  to  care  for  the  poorest  arid  most  forsaken  people 
of  the  Church  of  God.  The  negroes  being  found  at  this 
moment  in  this  position,  more  than  any  other  people,  we 
have  offered  ourselves  to  evangelize  them.77 

Having  become  a  priest,  the  first  of  these  men  was  sent 
to  Bourbon,  the  second  to  Mauritius,  and  the  third  died  in 
sight  of  St.  Domingo.  They  had  taken  for  their  superior 
a  holy  man,  Father  Libermann,  a  converted  Jew,  who  pre 
pared  the  foundation  of  the  community  destined,  in  the  idea 
of  its  institutors,  to  evangelize  the  negroes  in  Hayti  and  the 
Antilles,  as  well  as  in  the  two  Guianas,  Senegambia,  and 
the  rest  of  Africa. 

We  cannot  read  without  emotion  the  memorial  addressed 
by  Father  Libermann  to  the  congregation  of  the  Propa 
ganda,  on  the  general  condition  of  the  black  population  in 
the  world. 

"  Within  reach  of  Europe,77  says  he,  "  millions  of  men 
are  wallowing  in  ignorance  and  wretchedness,  yet  no  one 

*  MM.  Levavasseur,  Laval,  and  Tisserant. 

12*  R 


274  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

thinks  of  rescuing  them.  Nevertheless,  these  men,  as  well 
as  others,  are  created  in  the  image  of  God 

"  In  the  very  country  where  a  merciful  Providence  seems 
to  have  conducted  them  to  free  their  souls,  by  subjecting 
their  bodies  to  a  toilsome  servitude,  —  in  these  countries, 
where  they  should  find  the  riches  and  consolations  of 
grace,  their  souls  are  perishing  of  want  in  the  midst  of 
abundance,  and  there  is  no  one  to  aid  them." 

The  labors  of  the  missionaries  at  Bourbon  were  an  in 
valuable  preparation  for  emancipation,  and  the  principal 
cause  of  the  union  and  peace  which  reigned  when  it  was 
declared. 

In  short,  the  statesmen  who  labored  in  France  for  this 
great  work  were  not  mistaken  when  they  summoned  relig 
ion  to  their  aid ;  *  the  colonists  who  opposed  it  were  not 
mistaken  when  they  distrusted  it.  Religion  is  not  freedom, 
but  it  is  the  mother  of  freedom. 

But  the  history  of  religion  in  the  four  slave  colonies  of 
France,  until  emancipation,  ends  in  this  conclusion  :  — 

1.  All  the  effort,  all  the  credit,   all  the  encouragement, 
did  not  succeed  in  drawing  a  sufficient  number  of  laborers 

'to  the  ungrateful  mission  of  carrying  the  Gospel  into  the 
bosom  of  servitude. 

Before  the  ordinance  of  September  6,  1839,  there  were  in 
our  four  colonies  but  82  priests,  scarcely  1  to  4,500  inhab 
itants  on  a  considerable  surface. f  After  the  ordinance  of 
May  18,  1846,  there  were  only  127,  or  1  for  about  3,000  in 
habitants.  It  was  hoped  that  the  lists  would  be  filled  in 
184.74 

2.  Christianity,  which  brings  duty  and  hope  to  all  condi 
tions,  has  power  to  alleviate  and  moralize  even  slavery  ; 


*  Ordinances  of  1839  and  1846. 
f  Report  of  the  Duke  de  Broglie,  p.  122. 

j:  6th  Supplement  to  the  Report  of  the  Minister  of  the  Marine  to  the  King, 
March,  1847. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      275 

the  black  population  has  a  soul  peculiarly  open  to  its  teaqh- 
ings,  which  bear  fruit  when  the  master  is  exceptionally 
good,  the  apostle  exceptionally  holy.  But  in  general,  the 
slave,  the  master,  and  the  priest  are  depraved  by  servitude. 
Keligion  itself  seems  perverted  and  corrupted.  Its  progress 
is  impossible  before  emancipation,  infallible  after. 

§  2.    AFTER  THE  ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY. 

IN  all  the  colonies,  liberty  was  proclaimed  before  the 
altar.  The  negroes  received  it  as  a  sacrament,  in  one  of 
those  rare,  sublime,  and  joyous  hours  in  which  justice  tri 
umphs  here  on  earth.  God  was  taken  to  witness  the  recon 
ciliation  of  men. 

"Some  young  negroes  of  the  town,"  writes  the  Apos 
tolic  Prefect  of  Guiana,*  "  came  to  entreat  me  to  say  mass 
that  grace  might  be  given  them  not  to  abuse  their  free 
dom." 

"God  be  praised!"  exclaims  the  Apostolic  Prefect  of 
Martinico,t  "we  have  here  now  but  a  free  people,  a  peo 
ple  of  brethren,  whom  we  are  all  called  on  to  console,  to 

enlighten,  and  to  direct The  harvest  is  great ;  let 

us  enlarge  our  hearts  !  " 

"  The  colonial  missions  are  becoming  admirable  and 
worthy  of  envy,"  writes  the  Apostolic  Prefect  of  Guada- 
loupe.J  And  in  a  report  to  the  Minister  of  the  Marine,  he 
declares  that  "  the  negroes  repair  with  eagerness  to  relig 
ious  instructions,  marriages  are  multiplied,  and  so  many 
scholars  flock  to  the  schools  that  it  is  necessary  to  triple 
the  number." 

At  Bourbon,  where  the  missionaries  wrote  already  be 
fore  1848,  "We  are  the  mediators  of  the  two  popula- 

*  Unpublished  letter  of  1848. 

f  Pastoral  letter  of  August  15,  1848. 

|  Circular  of  June  17,  1848;  Report  of  Aug.  22,  1848. 


276  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

tions  ; they  feel  the  need  of  our  presence,  and 

we  profit  by  it  to  do  good/'  •  —  only  a  handful  of  negroes 
were  seen  to  go  tumultuously  to  cast  chains  into  the  sea ; 
all  remained  patient  and  confiding ;  they  had  waited  ten 
years  for  their  freedom,  they  waited  two  months  longer 
for  the  Commissioner-General  who  brought  the  decree,  then 
another  two  months  without  trouble  or  disorder  for  the 
proclamation  of  this  decree,  which  took  place  in  the  tem 
ples  of  God  ;  they  entered  into  liberty  as  it  were  by  a 
second  baptism. 

"It  would  doubtless  have  been  better,"  wrote  Father 
Libermann,  in  1850,  "  if  the  slaves  had  been  well  prepared  ; 
but  as  they  never  would  have  been  sufficiently  so,  on  ac 
count  of  the  opposition  of  their  masters,  this  sudden  eman 
cipation  may  be  regarded  as  a  gift  from  God."  * 

But,  far  from  being  finished,  the  moralizing  work  of  re 
ligion  was  beginning.  Not  only  was  it  necessary  for  it  to 
pass  through  days  of  revolution  and  ruin,  to  transfuse  into 
manners  the  fraternity  which  had  just  been  inscribed  in  the 
law,  and  to  struggle  against  ardent  rancors  and  guilty  in 
citements  ;  but  before  all  it  was  fitting  to  reform  the  clergy 
itself,  inefficient,  too  scanty,  and  imperfectly  organized. 
For  a  long  time  the  colonies  had  demanded  bishops.  The 
apostolic  prefects  were  invested  with  simple  administrative 
supremacy.  They  had  neither  the  external  dignity,  nor 
the  real  authority  of  bishops,  nor  the  independence  which 
results  to  them  from  immovability.  The  Colonial  Commis 
sion  of  1840, f  while  demanding  bishops,  had  hesitated  be 
fore  this  condition,  through  a  love  of  excessive  centraliza 
tion.  Placed  face  to  face  with  an  all-powerful  Governor,  a 
dependent  bishop  would  have  been  without  influence,  and 
this  dependence  was  precisely  what  lowered  the  character 
of  the  prefects. 

*  Unpublished  memorial,  Archives  of  the  Seminary  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
t  Meeting  of  Feb.  22,  1843. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      277 

The  Community  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  charged  with  main 
taining  the  supply  of  the  colonial  clergy,  had  rendered  the 
greatest  services.  Its  missionaries  were  already  evange 
lizing  Canada  and  Acadia  at  the  moment  of  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jesuits  (1773).  Guiana  was  then  confided  to  it 
(1776),  next,  Senegal  (1779),  recovered,  thanks  to  two  of 
its  missionaries,  and  the  islands  of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon. 
Founded  in  1703,  suppressed  in  1793,  re-established  in  1805 
by  Napoleon,  who  suppressed  it  anew  in  1809,  re-established 
in  1816,  installed  at  the  expense  of  the  state  in  1820,  and 
endowed  with  a  subsidy,  which  the  July  government  sup 
pressed  in  1830,  then  restored  in  1839,  the  Community  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  had  made  the  greatest  effort  to  augment 
the  number  and  quality  of  the  colonial  priests.  When  the 
ordinance  of  September  6,  1839,  placed  an  annual  appropri 
ation  at  the  disposal  of  the  government  for  the  increase  of 
the  clergy  and  churches,  the  community  could  support,  — 

At  Martinico,  44  priests,  serving  28  parishes  ; 

"  Guadaloupe,  46      "  "         32         " 

"  Bourbon,  30      "  "         14         " 

"  Guiana,  10      "  "         14  quarters;  — 

to  say  nothing  of  fifteen  priests  at  Senegal,  St.  Pierre,  the 
East  Indies,  and  Madagascar.  This  was  one  priest  for 
some  2,000  or  3,000  inhabitants. 

But  the  clergy  continued  to  have  for  superiors  only  pre 
fects  and  vice-prefects.  The  Superior  of  the  Community 
of  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Mary,  united  by  the  Pope  to  that 
of  the  Holy  Spirit, — Father  Libcrmann,  —  as  wise  as  dis 
interested,  took  immediate  measures,  although  unfavorable 
to  the  influence  of  his  community,  that  bishops  should  be 
finally  given  to  the  colonies.  His  prayers  were  granted 
by  the  decrees  of  June  22  and  July  12,  1850. 

Under  the  inspiration  of  a  minister  to  whom  the  Church 
and  society  owe  so  much,  —  M.  de  Falloux,  —  men  ceased 
thus  to  haggle  for  the  true  conditions  of  religious  power. 


278  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

Three  bishoprics  were  created  by  the  decrees  of  June  22 
and  July  12,  1850,  at  Basse-Terre  (Guadaloupe),  Port  Royal 
(Martinico),  and  St.  Denis  (Bourbon).*  The  National  As 
sembly  repeatedly  f  declared  itself  in  favor  of  their  insti 
tution,  and,  by  statutes  of  November  6  and  December  16, 
1850,  J  provided  for  the  expenses  of  their  installation.  The 
Holy  See  approved  and  hastened  to  sanction  this  important 
measure,  which  was  definitively  regulated  by  a  decree  of 
February  3,  1851.  Guiana  alone  remained  under  the  ancient 
regime. 

At  this  time,  the  effective  force  of  the  colonial  clergy  was 
raised, 

At  Martinico,         to         80  priests. 

"   Guadaloupe,      "          85       " 

"  Bourbon,  "          65       " 

Total,        .         .230 

The  bishops  of  the  colonies  were  attached  to  the  diocese 
of  Bordeaux,  as  belonging  to  the  mother  country,  and  con 
sequently  called  to  the  councils  of  that  province,  held,  the 
one  at  Rochelle  in  1853,  the  other  at  Perigueux  in  1856. 
The  acts  of  these  councils  subjected  the  colonial  dioceses 
to  the  rules  established  by  the  preceding  council,  held  at 
Bordeaux  in  1850,  and  which  had  expressed  wishes  for  their 
erection.  The  first  movement  of  the  fathers  of  the  Rochelle 
Council  was  to  bless  God  for  the  foundation  of  the  colonial 
bishoprics  and  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  The  terms 
in  which  this  was  done  deserve  to  be  cited  :  — 

"Before  all,  we  render  thanksgivings  to  God  the  Father 
for  the  mercies  which,  disposing  everything  with  gentleness, 
have  happily  ended,  through  his  providence,  an  affair  so  neces 
sary  to  the  salvation  of  souls,  and  likewise  to  the  sovereign 

*  The  bishops  appointed  were  M.  Lacarriere,  for  Guadaloupe;  M.  Leherpeur, 
for  Martinico;    M.  Desprez,  for  Bourbon, 
t   May  4,  July  29,  1850. 
t  On  the  report  of  M  Dariste,  Moniteur,  1850,  p.  3G01. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      279 

pontiff,  Pius  IX.,  who,  acceding  to  the  religious  prayers  of 
the  Prince-President  of  the  Republic,  and  changing  simple 
apostolic  prefectures  into  veritable  and  perpetual  bishop 
rics,  as  he  has  done  for  England  and  Holland,  despite  the 
resistance  and  anger  of  heretics  and  politicians,  thus  refutes, 
by  the  most  evident  facts,  the  pretended  discoveries,  calum- 
niously  spread,  of  a  change  of  bishops  into  papal  vicars."  * 

As  to  emancipation,  this  admirable  declaration,  approved 
by  the  Holy  See,  should  also  be  retained  :  — 

"  Numerous  constitutions  of  the  Roman  pontiffs,  dating 
back  several  centuries,  attest  how  much  the  holy  mother, 
the  Catholic  Church,  has  always  deplored  the  hard  slavery 
in  which  a  multitude  of  men  were  retained  to  the  loss  of  their' 

"  * 

souls,  and  by  what  efforts  she  has  unceasingly  labored  to 
remedy  so  great  an  evil.  Now,  thanks  to  God,  whose  prov 
idence  does  not  err  in  its  designs,  a  new  order  of  things 
has  broke  forth,  and  we  rejoice  in  the  Lord  for  the  capital 
benefit  accorded  to  so  many  men,  who,  though  of  a  differ 
ent  color,  are  our  brothers  in  Adam,  and  appear  to  wish  to 
use  the  liberty  so  long  desired  to  acquire  the  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God. 

"  But  alas  !  the  harvest  is  plenteous,  but  the  laborers  are 
few!  (Matt.  ix.  37.)" 

The  bishops  did  not  reach  their  dioceses  until  the  close 
of  1851,  nearly  three  years  after  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
Here,  again,  what  should  have  taken  place  before  was  not 
done  till  afterwards,  and  long  enough  afterwards  for  the 
good  and  harm  of  emancipation,  abandoned  to  itself,  to  be 
already  effected  and  judged. 

But  the  religious  good  has  begun,  and  continues  more 
and  more  to  prevail. 

The  clergy  could  not  be  suddenly  augmented  ;  it  has,  nev 
ertheless,  been  increased. 

*  Decrota  concilii  provincse  Burdigalensis,  Rupellse  celebrati,  anno  Domini 
1833.  Cap.  V.  p.  48. 
t   Ibid.,  Cap.  VI.  p.  50. 


280 


THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 


The  official  list  is  still :  — 
80  for  Martinico  ; 
85  for  Guadaloupe  ; 
74  for  Bourbon. 

But,  besides  this  list,  there  are  parochial  chapels,  curacies, 
and  almonries  unrecognized.  One  priest  is  computed  for 
about  2,500  inhabitants  ;  now  it  will  be  remembered  that,  be 
fore  1848,  there  was  but  one  for  3,000  ;  before  1839,  but  one 
for  4,500.  The  present  number  is,  moreover,  far  from  .suffi 
cient.  In  France,  there  is  one  priest  for  700  inhabitants,  and 
the  distances  are  much  less,  no  diocese  having  60  leagues, 
as  at  Bourbon,  65,  as  at  Martinico,  or  85,  as  at  Guadaloupe. 
The  number  of  churches  is  considerably  increased.  Sev 
eral  Tiave  been  built  by  the  negroes.  But  the  parishes  are 
still  too  large  and  the  churches  too  scarce. 

The  moral  good  wrought  has  been  immense.  This  has 
been  judged,  in  a  preceding  chapter,  from  the  number  of 
marriages  ;  it  will  also  be  judged  from  the  progress  of 
schools. 

Before  the  ordinance  of  June  5,  1840,  and  the  financial 
encouragement  in  the  budget  of  1839,  the  report  of  the 
Duke  de  Broglie  *  stated  that  the  elementary  and  moral  in 
struction  of  slave-children  in  our  colonies  was  deplorably 
neglected,  and,  so  to  say,  null.  There  was  not  one  child  in 
twenty-five  that  could  even  follow  the  Catechism.  The  im 
pulse  given  in  1840  by  the  Apostolic  Prefects  and  the  Gov 
ernors  produced  some  happy  results.  Nevertheless,  the 
Colonial  Commission  demanded  an  expenditure  of  1,740,000 
francs  for  the  foundation  of  indispensable  schools.  In  the 
English  colonies,  during  the  three  first  years  of  apprentice 
ship,  the  government  had  appropriated  £75,000  to  the 
schools,  and  such  had  been  the  zeal  of  the  missionaries 
and  authorities,  that  the  English  colonies  possessed  1  school 
for  600  inhabitants,  instructing  1  child  in  9,  at  the  same 

*  Report,  p.  92,  etc. 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      281 

time  that  France  counted  only  1  school  for  1,000  inhabit 
ants,  instructing  1  child  in  12. 

What  the  Colonial  Commission  proposed  in  France  in 
1840  is  not  yet  everywhere  realized. 

It  demanded,  at  Martinico,  47  Brothers  de  Ploermel,  in 
stead  of  14  ;  in  the  budget  of  1860,  50  are  paid  from  the 
local  fund  ;  —  54  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph,  instead  of  6  ;  there 
are  40. 

At  Guadaloupe,  it  considered  it  necessary  to  raise  the 
number  of  brothers  from  15  to  54  ;  there  are  50  ;  —  the 
number  of  sisters,  from  T  to  54  ;  there  are  53. 

At  Guiana,  23  brothers  were  proposed  instead  of  5  ;  there 
are  14  ;  —  31  sisters,  instead  of  9  ;  there  are  14. 

At  Bourbon,  where  the  boys'  schools  are  superintended 
by  the  Brothers  of  the  Christian  Schools,  it  was  wished  to 
increase  the  number  of  these  and  of  the  girls'  schools  to  12 
each  ;  the  number  has  been  increased,  but  in  a  less  pro 
portion: 

We  see  that  a  perceptible  progress  has  been  accom 
plished  ;  but  it  is  lamentable  that  still  greater  sacrifices 
have  not  been  made.  The  programme  drawn  in  1840  is 
not  yet  carried  out,  twenty  years  after. 

The  eagerness  of  the  freed  population  to  profit  by  teach 
ing  has  been  lively  and  lasting.  A  school-fee  might  be 
imposed  almost  without  lessening  it.* 

Primary  instruction  is  progressing  ;  let  us  not  forget  that 
it  was  null  twenty  years  ago  ;  it  is  relished,  desired,  and 
encouraged,  it  was  rejected,  fettered,  and  distrusted. 

The  religious  good,  strictly  speaking,  is  no  less.  The 
letters  of  the  bishops  are  full  of  the  most  admirable  de 
tails  of  the  number  of  communions,  the  attendance  of  the 
churches,  and  the  progress  of  works  of  charity  and  re 
ligious  associations. 

*  The  full  statistics  of  the  number  of  pupils,  xinhappily,  have  not  been  col 
lected. 


282  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

I  open  a  simple  collection,  entitled,  "  Religious  Alma 
nac  of  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  for  I860,7'  and  mark  what  I 
find  :  - 

The  island  is  divided  into  two  districts,  —  the  Windward 
district  and  the  Leeward  district  ;  the  first  comprises  21 
parishes,  and  the  second  24.  The  population  being  about 
140,000,  without  including  40,000  immigrants,  there  are 
therefore  about  3,000  souls  to  a  parish.  There  are,  more 
over,  42  chapels. 

In  these  45  parishes  exist :  — 

Two  ecclesiastical  colleges ; 

Fifteen  schools  of  the  Brothers  of  Christian  Schools  ; 

Seventeen  infant  schools  of  the  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph  ; 

Two  military  hospitals ; 

A  hospital  for  the  aged  ; 

An  insane  asylum  ; 

A  penitentiary,  kept  by  the  Monks  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 

Two  Malgache  establishments  ; 

A  special  parish  for  the  Indians  ; 

Two  communities  of  the  Sacred  Heart  and  the  Christian 
Mothers  ; 

Two  societies  of  the  Sisters  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  ; 

Three  institutions  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  ; 

Eight  orphan  asylums,  lepers'  hospitals,  schools,  or  other 
establishments  of  the  Daughters  of  Mary  ; 

Twenty-three  societies  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  ; 

Sixteen  institutions  of  Our  Lady  of  Good  Succor. 

These  last  societies  are  associations  for  mutual  aid,  the 
first  among  working-men,  the  second  among  working-wo 
men,  to  assist  each  other  in  case  of  sickness,  and  to  combine 
with  the  church.  Drunkenness  is  a  cause  of  exclusion.  At 
St.  Denis,  the  Society  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  contains  more 
than  1,000  working-men,  and  exists  in  almost  every  parish. 
The  Daughters  of  Mary  are  an  order  founded  since  1848  ; 
the  Sisters  are  both  white  and  black,  and  the  former  slaves 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      283 

have  been  seen  to  become  the  superiors  of  the  daughters 
of  their  ancient  mistresses.  Can  the  triumph  of  Christian 
equality  go  further  ?  * 

I  add  this  sentence,  extracted  from  an  unpublished  letter 
from  one  of  the  first  bishops  of  the  island  :    "  Almost  all 

the  freedmeri  of  1848  are  practical  Christians It  is 

said  that  they  are  idle  and  in  want ;  I  should  not  need  a 
hundred  francs  a  year  to  succor  all  these  paupers." 

A  work  of  special  evangelization  has  been  established  for 
the  East  Indians  and  Malgaches  ;  but,  ill  chosen,  maltreated, 
and  without  wives,  these  Indians  are  the  scourge  of  a  dio 
cese,  and  often  the  disgrace  of  humanity.     (Pcrigueux,  IV.) 
At  Martinico,  before  1848,  there  existed  only  charitable 
boards.     Since  this  epoch,  the  Society  of  Saint  Vincent  de 
Paul,  the  Workingmen's  Society  of  St.  Joseph,  two  work 
shops,  societies  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  and  missions  for 
the  moralization  of  the  blacks,  have  diffused  their  benefits. 
There  are  3,000  or  4,000  first  communions  a  year,  at  least 
one  half  among  adults  and  the  aged.     Morality  is  progress 
ing  ;    marrages   and  legitimations,   thanks  to   the   diminu 
tion  of  the  prejudice  of  color,  continue  to  be  numerous. 
The  progress  is  no  less  perceptible  in  instruction.     A  large 
seminary  was  founded  in  1851  at  St.  Pierre.    The  same  town 
and  Fort-de-France  contain  a  small  seminary  college.     The 
schools  of  the  Brothers  de  Ploermel,t  for  boys,  and  of  the 
Sisters  of  St.  Joseph,  for  girls,  together  contain  from  3,000 
to  4,000  pupils  ;    and  the    document  from  which  this  in 
formation  is  borrowed  contains  this  sentence  :    "  It  is  only 

*  Some  are  astonished  that  priests  are  not  formed  from  a  population  which 
has  so  much  inclination  for  religion.  Ten  years  have  not  been  sufficient  to 
give  enough  consistency  or  enlightenment  to  the. family  of  the  freedman.  The 
chief  obstacle  is  in  the  prejudice  of  cojpr.  The  whites  would  scarcely  respect 
a  black  priest,  and  the  blacks  themselves  would  not  turn  to  him. 

f  This  admirable  order,  which  transforms  Breton  peasants  into  apostles  of 
the  Antilles,  Senegal,  Guiana,  and  India,  has  just  lost  its  venerable  founder,  the 
Abbe"  Jean  de  la  Mennais,  whom  God  destined  to  do  more  good  than  his  unfor 
tunate  brother  made  noise. 


284  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

since  1848  that  moral  progress  has  begun  to  be  perceptible. 
The  former  state  of  things  by  no  means  favored  it."  * 

The  religious  movement  at  Guadaloupe  has  been  no  less 
decided  since  the  same  epoch.  Schools  in  every  parish, 
evening  classes  for  adults,  the  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de 
Paul,  the  workshops  at  Basse-Terre,  Pointe-a-Pitre,  and 
Mary  Galante,  numerous  first  communions  of  adults,  — 
such  are  the  facts  signalized  by  most  veracious  docu 
ments. f 

Lastly,  the  Guiana  mission  has  founded  new  residences, 
and  the  admirable  priests  who  go,  braving  death,  to  evan 
gelize  convicts,  Indians,  and  negroes,  are  full  of  consolation 
and  hope.J 

It  is  in  this  manner  that,  with  the  forces  of  a  clergy  in 
adequate  and  not  always  irreproachable,  although  greatly 
improved,  the  Church  struggles  on  in  these  distant  lands 
against  ignorance,  drunkenness,  concubinage,  idleness,  the 
hostility  of  classes,  —  sad  results  of  our  nature,  aggravated 
by  three  centuries  of  slavery.  Compare  these  colonial  dio 
ceses  with  a  diocese  in  the  heart  of  France,  —  the  French 
diocese  will  unite  more  resources,  the  colonial  diocese  will 
bear  more  fruits.  Compare  the  hopes  conceived  since  1848 
and  the  sterility  verified  before.  How  is  it  that  so  little 
good  was  effected  in  the  first  period  in  so  many  years  ?  how 
is  it  that  so  much  was  effected  in  the  second  in  so  few 
years  ?  From  the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  we  have  indi 
cated  the  true  reply,  —  no  liberty,  no  religion. 

The  progress  is  so  much  the  more  satisfactory,  inasmuch 

*  Archives  of  the  Seminary  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

t  In  1840,  an  energetic  effort  raised  for  the  first  time  to  10,237  the  number 
of  freed  persons  and  slaves,  both  over  and  under  fourteen,  attendant  upon  paro 
chial  instructions.  In  1860,  the  number;  of  adults  knowing  the  Catechism  was, 
according  to  the  report  of  the  Governor,  23,761. 

J  "  I  have  18  missionaries  at  my  disposal,"  wrote  the  Apostolic  Prefect,  Sep 
tember  18, 1860,  "  several  of  whom  have  to  officiate  over  10  or  12  leagues.  Three 
quarters,  two  of  which  comprise  20  and  40  leagues,  are  without  pastors.  The 
number  should  be  doubled!  "  (Archives  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith.) 


RELIGION  AND  INSTRUCTION  AFTER  EMANCIPATION.      285 

as  the  means  of  the  bishops  are  still  extremely  inadequate, 
as  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated. 

"  The  cures  almost  all  lack  vicars,"  said  the  fathers  of  the 
Council  of  Rochelle,*  "  and  the  parishes  are  for  the  most 
part  too  extended.  The  heats  are  overpowering  ;  the  ac 
clivities  are  steep  and  continual,  and  as  the  priest  toilingly 
surmounts  them,  he  sees  crowds  of  freedmen  besieging  the 
church  doors  to  marry  and  to  prepare  for  the  first  commun 
ion,  so  that  one  may  say  of  these  people,  with  the  prophet : 
'  The  children  lack  bread,  and  there  is  none  to  give  it 
them/-" 

There  are  not  enough  priests,  nor  enough  missionaries,  nor 
enough  brothers,  nor  enough  sisters,  nor  enough  churches. 

Despite  this  mournful  destitution,  the  colonial  dioceses 
are  rapidly  progressing  Christian  communities. 

"It  is  scarcely  six  years,"  we  read  in  the  acts  of  the 
Council  of  Perigueux,f  held  in  1856,  with  the  concurrence 
of  the  Holy  See  and  the  French  government,  "  since  three 
new  dioceses  were  erected  in  our  colonies.  It  is  marvel 
lous  what  abundant  fruits  the  Church  has  already  gathered 
from  them." 

Returning  to  emancipation,  the  fathers  of  the  same  Coun 
cil  exclaimed  :  — 

"  It  delights  us  to  recall  here  the  opinion  of  the  Apostle 
Paul,  in  whose  eyes  there  were  neither  Greeks  nor  Scythi 
ans,  so  that,  united  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  faithful  may  forget 
nation,  and  be  all  of  one  body  with  Christ  and  members  of  his 
members."  J 

Will  religion  work  this  desirable  and  difficult  harmony  ? 
It  has  God  and  the  future  on  its  side.  These  words  of  the 
Council  at  least  measure  the  whole  distance  which  sepa 
rates  the  system  of  freedom  from  that  of  slavery.  For- 

*  Archives  de  la  Propagation  de  lafoi,  p.  53. 
t  P.  61,  Cap.  I.  Tit.  4. 
J  P.  55,  Cap.  III.  Tit.  5. 


286  THE   FRENCH  COLONIES. 

merly,  religion  said  to  the  masters,  "  Be  clement !"  to  the 
slaves,  "  Be  patient  I"  It  can  say  at  length  to  both,  "  Be 
brethren  I" 

This  word  can  fall  sincerely  from  the  lips  of  the  priests 
only  since  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

In  short,  religion  did  all  the  good  that  it  could  to  the 
colonies  before  this  epoch.  The  colonies  had  not  yet 
European  colonists  when  it  counted  martyrs.  When  the 
Caribs  were  unjustly  slaughtered,  it  defended  them.  When 
slaves  were  introduced,  it  protected  them,  instructed  them, 
enjoined  their  kind  treatment,  and  counselled  their  fieedom. 
The  masters  owed  to  it  the  tranquillity  of  the  slaves  ;  the 
slaves  owed  to  it  the  gentleness  of  the  masters,  and  by  de 
grees  the  only  joys  that  could  raise  their  souls  above  the 
rigors  of  their  condition.  But  religion  did  not  penetrate 
beyond  this. 

The  complete  evangelization  of  this  unfortunate  race  ex 
acted  the  freedom  of  the  soul,  the  freedom  of  preaching,  the 
freedom  of  marriage.  Without  the  first,  there  was  no  re 
sponsibility  for  the  moral  being  ;  without  the  second,  no 
enlightenment  for  the  mind  ;  without  the  third,  no  good 
morals.  The  master  held  the  will  captive,  refused  the  time 
necessary  for  preaching  and  the  authorization  necessary  for 
marriage.  Such  was,  such  is,  in  all  places,  the  narrow  part 
left  by  servitude  to  the  Gospel. 

On  the  day  when  the  slaves  were  emancipated,  religion, 
with  them,  was  set  at  liberty. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

RESUME. 

BEFORE  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  every  step  taken 
towards  this  solemn  hour  was  lighted  by  immense  labors, 
reports,  discussions,  and  inquiries.  A  father  does  not  fol 
low  with  more  vigilant  eye,  from  day  to  day,  the  minute 
notes  which  attest  the  progress  of  his  child,  than  the  public 
authorities  brought  care,  passionate  curiosity,  and  active 
perseverance  to  ascertain  the  results  of  the  measures  ob 
tained  of  the  government. 

To-day  the  work  is  accomplished,  and  no  one  seeks  to 
verify  the  results  of  an  experiment  which  was  the  object  of 
such  generous  expectation.  The  most  ardent  promoters  of 
emancipation  are  like  the  architects  who  go  every  day  to 
see  a  house  while  it  is  building,  and  never  set  foot  in  it  after 
it  is  finished.  It  would,  however,  be  most  useful  if  public 
opinion  would  call  on  the  government  to  prescribe  and  pub 
lish  an  extended  inquiry  into  the  results  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  our  colonies. 

The  study  of  an  isolated  writer  can  be  only  an  imperfect 
sketch  of  this  desirable  work  ;  it  has  no  other  merit  than  to 
group  together  scattered  documents,  doubtless  incomplete, 
yet  already  numerous  enough  to  lead  to  precise  conclusions, 
which  it  is  fitting  to  sum  up. 

It  will  be  thought  that  it  is  too  soon  to  judge  well  of  so 
recent  events.  Those  who,  in  1849  or  1850,  groaned  over 
the  first  outbreaks  of  reconquered  freedom,  deserve  the  re 
proach  of  being  in  too  great  haste.  If  the  always  painful 
consequences  of  a  great  social  transformation  still  weighed 


288  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

upon  the  colonies,  one  could  have  a  right  to  say  of  them, 
Wait  I  Is  it  surprising  that  ten  years  of  freedom  have  not 
effaced  the  evils  accumulated  in  two  centuries  of  servitude  ? 
But  if  these  evils  are  almost  entirely  healed,  is  not  such 
promptness  a  remarkable  fact,  and  does  it  not  deserve  that 
we  should  hasten  to  establish  it  ?  It  would  be  too  soon  to 
complain,  it  is  not  too  soon  to  congratulate  ourselves. 

Another  motive  for  choosing  the  present  moment  is  added 
to  the  first  reason.  The  statute  of  May  23,  1860,  which  ef 
fected  a  large  reduction  of  imposts  on  colonial  commodities  ; 
the  statutes  of  July  and  August,  1860,  which,  by  facilitat 
ing  the  provisioning  of  the  Antilles  and  Bourbon,  con 
ducted  to  the  rupture  of  the  colonial  compact,  a  rupture 
which  is  becoming  the  prayer  and  watchword  of  the  colo 
nies  ;  the  treaties  enactej.  to  increase  the  laboring  popula 
tion,  —  all  these  circumstances  are  to  the  colonies  like  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era,  and  of  a  transformation  which  will 
not  be  effected  without  complaints  from  many  in  behalf 
of  the  treasury  and  marine  of  France.  The  abolition  of 
slavery  will  be  accused,  if  this  great  experiment  succeeds, 
of  having  rendered  it  necessary,  and  if  it  does  not  succeed, 
of  having  rendered  it  sterile.  It  was  useful  to  pause  at  this 
stage,  to  fix  the  first  effects  of  emancipation,  and  to  demon 
strate  that,  before  the  important  laws  of  1860,  and  without 
their  aid,  the  French  colonies  had  already  returned  to  a  state 
of  prosperity  exceeding  that  of  the  previous  period. 

It  will  give  rise  to  astonishment,  perhaps,  that,  in  a  gen 
eral  work,  so  large  a  place  should  have  been  accorded  to  the 
French  colonies.  They  are  so  small  that  the  experiment 
attempted  on  this  narrow  theatre  seems  indecisive.  What 
are  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  slaves,  belonging  to  a 
few  thousand  masters  ?  Their  affranchisement  is  a  benefit, 
it  is  not  an  argument. 

I  believe  the  contrary. 

The  French  colonies  merit  a  place  apart ;  first,  because 
they  are  French  ;  furthermore,  because  their  example  is  a 


RESUME.  289 

doubly  shining  demonstration,  a  triumphant  condemnation 
of  slavery,  an  irrefragable  justification  of  emancipation. 
Never,  in  fact,  will  better  conditions  be  encountered  to 
soften,  regulate,  and  in  some  sort  civilize  slavery  ;  never 
could  it  be  abolished  in  worse  conditions. 

Humanity  and  intelligence  were  not  lacking  to  the  mas 
ters  ;  will  and  force  were  not  lacking  to  the  government,  or 
the  governors,  almost  always  admirably  chosen.  Statutes, 
ordinances,  despatches,  regulations,  translating  all  the  fears 
of  the  public  conscience,  seemed  to  anticipate  everything, 
and  to  leave  no  room  for  abuses.  Despite  so  many  cares, 
the  situation  of  colonial  society  was  really  pitiable.  Amidst 
laments,  resistance,  and  threats,  combated  by  passionate 
accusation,  it  was  difficult  to  grasp  the  truth ;  yet,  notwith 
standing,  an  involuntary  agreement  between  the  most  dis 
similar  testimony  was  established  on  some  points.  The  com 
plaints  of  the  colonists  and  the  pictures  of  the  abolitionists 
vied  with  each  other  in  demonstrating  that  the  colonies  were 
ruined.  While  the  sentences  of  the  courts  revealed  odious 
excesses,  scandalous  acquittals  arraigned  the  corruption  of 
the  courts.  Figures,  those  impassible  tale-bearers,  teach 
that  the  population  grew  only  by  illegitimacy,  and  that  con 
cubinage  was  universal.  In  vain  the  laws  had  multiplied 
emancipations  ;  under  the  influence  of  the  ordinances  of  July 
12,  1832,  April  29,  1836,  and  June  11,  1839,  they  had  in 
creased  ;  but  their  number  did  not  exceed  from  1,500  to 
2,000  a  year,  from  300  to  500  only  among  the  agricultural 
population.  The  aggregate,  from  1830  to  1847,  was  50,240, 
of  which  more  than  half  were  in  Martinico  ;  scarcely  6,000 
in  seventeen  years  in  Bourbon.*  At.  this  rate,  it  would  have 

*  Martinico  .         .         .        .  .    '  .        .     25,661 

Guadaloupe          .        .        ,       .        .  .  .        16,111 

Guiana     .  .                ...        .  .  .        .      2,603 

Bourbon       .        .        .        ...  .  ...      .    5,865 

Total 50,240 

Table  of  Population  for  1S47,  No.  13,  p.  33. 
13  H 


290  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

required  more  than  a  century  to  finish  it,  in  a  manner  often 
immoral  and  always  dangerous  ;  for  the  false  position  of 
these  freednnen,  who  distrusted  labor  and  were  forced  to 
chaffer  for  equality,  increased  the  uneasiness  without  ad 
vancing  its  solution.* 

The  permanent  conflict  of  two  hostile  races,  the  smoth 
ered  war  of  abuses  and  rancors,  the  corruption  of  morals, 
luxury  in  the  face  of  abject  want,  idle-ness  conducting  the 
whites  to  apathy  and  routine,  compulsory  labor  leading  the 
blacks  to  brutishness  ;  no  public  life,  no  country  ;  the  earth 
and  sky  unweariedly  lavishing  abundance,  but  the  soil,  treat 
ed  also  like  a  slave,  wearing  out  and  unceasingly  deserted  ; 
the  absent  proprietors  represented  by  hard  and  covetous 
agents  ;  wealth  endangered,  involved,  and  disgraced  ;  jus 
tice  suspicious  and  halting;  religion  debased  and  perverted  ; 
the  laws  sometimes  inhuman,  at  others  cavilling  ;  the  slave 
holders  themselves  the  slaves  of  the  law,  which  penetrated 
in  an  intolerable  manner  into  their  abode,  struck  the  hours, 
weighed  out  all  rations,  and  abolished  property  without 
abolishing  servitude  ;  —  in  the  midst  of  such  a  community 
lived  a  number  of  good,  intelligent,  sincere  masters,  victims 
of  a  situation  which  they  had  not  made,  which  grieved 
them,  yet  the  end  of  which  they  dared  not  anticipate,  much 
less  solicit,  so  firmly  rooted  was  the  belief  that  the  emanci 
pation  of  the  slaves  was  to  the  colonies  perhaps  massacre, 
certainly  ruin. 

The  sinister  prophecies  troubled  those  even  whom  they 
did  not  check,  and  the  most  resolute  partisans  of  emanci 
pation,  in  the  government  and  in  the  chambers,  took  infi 
nite  precautions,  and  proceeded  slowly,  like  a  man  carrying 
a  lighted  torch  near  a  barrel  of  gunpowder. 

Events  made  sport  of  this  resistance  and  slowness.  The 
colonists  wished  a  preparatory  delay,  —  there  was  no  delay. 

*  The  number  of  emancipations,  says  M.  de  Broglie  (Report,  p.  132),  the  most 
frequent  cause  of  which  is  a  secret  to  no  one,  increases  from  day  to  day,  to  the 
great  detriment  of  public  order. 


RESUME.  291 

They  wished,  by  the  preliminary  application  of  the  law 
on  expropriation,  to  secure  a  regular  liquidation  of  the 
enormous  colonial  debt :  — it  was  sudden  and  violent. 

They  wished  that  the  indemnity  should  be  preliminary, 
-  it  was  not  paid  until  after  emancipation  ;  that  it  should 
be  at  least  prompt,  —  it  was  waited  for  two  years  ;  that  it 
should  be  large,  —  1,200  francs  had  been  rejected, — it 
scarcely  amounted  to  500  francs  ;  that  it  shoujd  serve  as 
a  subsidy  to  paid  labor,  —  it  was  swallowed  up  by  debts. 

They  wished  to  found  hospitals,  schools,  and  prisons,  for 
which  appropriations  were  voted  ;  —  there  was  no  time  to 
increase  the  former,  scarcely  to  apply  the  latter. 

They  wished  a  wide-spread  outpouring  of  Christianity 
and  instruction,  a  sort  of  preparatory  training  for  the  dig 
nity  of  freemen,  arid  demanded  a  better  governed,  more  nu 
merous,  and  purer  clergy;  —  the  colonial  bishoprics  were 
not  established  until  three  years  after. 

They  wished  to  fortify  the  garrisons  and  tribunals,  and 
to  proclaim  freedom  in  the  midst  of  a  fully  armed  peace  ; 
—  it  was  proclaimed  in  the  midst  of  a  revolution  let  loose. 

They  wished,  by  the  introduction  of  free  workmen,  to 
conjure  down  in  advance  the  desertion  of  the  works,  and  to 
set  an  example  of  labor  without  constraint ;  —  capital  re 
mained  unemployed  ;  they  had  to  organize  labor  in  the 
colonies  while  essaying  socialism  in  France. 

They  wished,  by  a  heavy  reduction  of  imposts,  to  encour 
age  production  and  indemnify  the  producers ; — the  reduction 
was  not  obtained  until  after  four  years,  and  did  not  become 
complete  until  after  twelve  years. 

They  wished  slowly  to  initiate  the  freedman  into  civil 
life; — the  slave,  scarcely  made  man,  was  made  voter,  and 
was  endowed,  without  transition,  with  the  unlimited  liberty 
of  the  press  and  universal  suffrage. 

In  a  word,  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  contemporaneous 
with  the  abolition  of  order  and  the  abolition  of  commerce. 


292  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

In  such  circumstances,  if  colonial  society  had  been  over 
thrown,  stained  with  blood,  and  plunged  into  ruin,  who 
would  have  been  surprised  ? 

Now,  at  Martinico,  in  1848,  at  Guadaloupe,  in  1849,  blood 
was  shed  and  the  incendiary  torch  was  lighted.  But  the. 
revolution,  not  emancipation,  is  responsible  for  these  fleet 
ing  disorders.  What  would  have  happened  without  it  ? 
This  is  what  we  should  justly  ask.  It  was  invoked  with  a 
common  voice  as  the  only  means  of  calming  the  revolution, 
and  of  transforming  vengeance  into  gratitude,  wrath  into 
gentleness.  Where,  since  the  first  moments,  are  the  vic 
tims  which  freedom  has  made  ?  Where  are  the  reprisals 
which  it  has  let  loose  ?  Where  are  the  prisons  which  it  has 
necessitated  ?  Where  are  the  regiments  whose  presence  it 
has  rendered  necessary  ?  At  Martinico,  at  Guadaloupe,  the 
social  revolution  has  done  less  harm  than  in  thirty  depart 
ments  of  France.  At  Guiana,  no  disturbance,  despite  the 
facility  of  fleeing  and  hiding  ;  at  Bourbon,  not  an  incendi 
arism,  not  an  act  of  vengeance,  not  a  bankruptcy.  Every 
where  noisy  elections,  yet  everywhere  conservative. 

Doubtless  production  has  been  reduced,  but  has  never 
been  annihilated  ;  labor  has  been  diminished,  but  has  never 
wholly  ceased  ;  property  has  suffered  ;  that  this  last  blow 
has  consummated  the  ruin  of  the  proprietors  involved  in  debt, 
is  incontestable;  but  these  sufferings  were  felt  in  France 
and  the  rest  of  the  world  at  the  same  time  as  in  the  colo 
nies.  They  have  lasted  longer  ;  nevertheless,  five  years 
had  scarcely  elapsed  when  the  aggregate  of  commerce  ex 
ceeded,  in  the  four  colonies,  the  amount  anferior  to  1848  ; 
after  ten  years,  the  amount  of  exportation  alone  was  tripled 
at  Bourbon,  exceeded  at  Martinico,  attained  at  Guadaloupe. 

Guiana,  scarcely  a  producing  colony,  transformed  into  a 
penal  colony,  supplied  with  inhabitants  by  the  deportation 
of  from  4,000  to  6,000  consumers,  exported  less,  without 
the  aggregate  of  its  commerce  having  ceased  increasing. 


RESUME  293 

The  facilities  for  procuring  new  laborers  by  immigration 
do  not  alone  explain  the  success  of  Bourbon  and  the  pro 
gress  of  the  Antilles  ;  for  at  Bourbon  the  products  have  in 
creased  more  than  the  laborers  ;  at  the  Antilles,  the  former 
figures  had  been  attained  before  immigration  could  have 
contributed  perceptibly  thereto. 

Doubtless,  numerous  blacks  refuse  to  labor,  flee  to  the 
mountains,  and  regard  freedom  as  the  right  to  do  nothing. 

Cast  the  blame  of  this  on  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  the 
nature  of  man.  In  no  country  of  the  world  does  man  labor 
more  than  is  necessary  to  satisfy  his  needs,  tastes,  and  de 
sires  ;  in  no  country  of  the  world  does  man  labor  willingly 
for  others,  when  he  can  find  it  to  his  advantage  to  labor  for 
himself.* 

Cast  the  blame  of  it,  above  all,  on  slavery.  Whence  comes, 
then,  this  abhorrence  by  the  former  slaves  of  their  former 
labor  ?  Freedom  is  the  occasion  of  it,  but  servitude  the 
cause.  A  man  visited  an  abandoned  plantation,  about 
which  the  freed  slaves  were  lazily  sleeping.  "  See  what 
freedom  has  made  of  labor,"  said  his  companions.  "  See 
what  servitude  has  made  of  laborers/'  was  his  reply. 

But  the  number  of  laborers  has  diminished  much  less 
than  is  affirmed,  and,  furthermore,  labor  is  rather  trans 
formed  than  diminished.  The  peasant  has  become  an  arti 
san,  or,  rather,  a  freeholder  ;  he  has  not  always  become  a 
vagabond.  Dispute  as  one  will  arguments  drawn  from  the 
progress  of  imports  and  exports,  the  lowest  figure  proves 
that  these  pretended  paupers  consume  largely,  and  thafc 
these  pretended  idlers  produce  largely. 

Now  one  of  two  things  is  true  ;  either  so  many  laborers 
are  needed  for  so  many  products,  —  in  which  case  the  num 
ber  of  laborers  has  not  diminished  so  largely  as  is  affirmed, 
—  or  many  less  free  men,  working  less  hours  a  day,  have 
produced  more  than  a  large  number  of  slaves  ;  in  which 

*  Broglie,  p.  823. 


294  THE  FRENCH   COLONIES. 

case  the  superiority  of  free  over  servile  labor  is  demon 
strated. 

This  last  hypothesis  is  the  true  one,  in  a  double  point  of 
view. 

The  labor  of  the  white  is  no  less  improved  than  that  of 
the  black.  Now  this  is  the  gist  of  the  matter.  The  intel 
lect  of  the  whites,  the  vigor  of  the  blacks,  —  these  are 
the  first  two  elements  of  wealth  to  the  colonies.  St.  Do 
mingo  is  an  example  of  a  country  abandoned  to  blacks 
alone  ;  but  if  it  had  been  abandoned  to  whites  alone,  with 
out  their  former  slaves,  what  could  they  have  done  with  it  ? 
During  slavery  the  indolence  of  the  whites  was  proverbial ; 
they  let  themselves  be  conquered  while  sleeping. 

We  say  it  to  the  honor  of  freedom  and  the  colonies. 
Since  emancipation,  they  have  courageously  resigned  them 
selves,  they  have  ceased  to  mourn  in  order  to  act.  At 
Bourbon,  implements  have  been  changed,  and  processes  of 
manufacture  improved  ;  the  income  is  doubled  ;  they  are 
not  afraid  to  pay  for  five  years'  hire  of  a  laborer  double 
what  they  received  as  the  price  of  a  slave.  Those  who 
confidently  bought  plantations  in  1848  have  realized  im 
mense  fortunes  ;  progress  has  followed  wealth,  and  the  last 
Agricultural  Exhibition  showed  us  sugar  from  Bourbon 
which  did  not  need  refining.  At  the  Antilles,  they  no 
longer  content  themselves  with  execrating  indigenous  .su 
gar,  they  imitate  it  ;  they  have  established  central  works, 
they  are  introducing  machinery  and  manures,  attempting 
drainage,  taking  out  patents,  demanding  landed  •  credit, 
availing  themselves  of  agricultural  credit,  and  calling  for 
free  trade.  In  a  word,  they  are  departing  from  hackneyed 
and  ruinous  traditions,  —  the  fatal  companions  of  slavery, 
—  and  are  seeking  to  realize  those  first  four  conditions  of 
all  economical  progress,  —  the  improvement  of  processes, 
the  abundance  of  hands,  the  facility  of  credit,  and  the  en 
largement  of  the  markets. 


RESUME. 


295 


The  following  fact  has  always  struck  me  :  - 

The  prosperity  of  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  is  incontestably 
far  superior  to  what  it  was  before  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
It  is,  furthermore,  impossible  to  pretend  that  this  island  has 
received  from  nature  a  perpetual  advantage  over  the  rest. 
For,  before  1848,  Guadaloupe  was  the  most  flourishing  of 
our  colonies,  Martinico  next,  Bourbon  last  ;  the  order  is 
now  exactly  reversed,  —  Bourbon  comes  first,  then  Mar 
tinico,  lastly  Guadaloupe. 

However  disagreeable,  therefore,  may  have  been  the  se 
quel  of  emancipation,  it  is  not  justifiable  to  affirm  that  the 
ruin  of  the  colonies  has  been  the  infallible  and  inevitable 
consequence  of  this  measure,  since  this  consequence  has 
been  averted  at  Bourbon. 

In  the  second  place,  since  three  colonies,  under  the  influ 
ence  of  the  same  cause,  are  in  wholly  different  conditions, 
this  cause  has  not  been  the  only  thing  that  has  acted  on 

them. 

Either  it  is  joined  to  other  evils,  or  it  has  prevented  other 
remedies.  It  is  unjust  to  say  that  this  cause  has  done  all 
the  harm,  since  the  same  cause  elsewhere  has  not  done  the 
same  harm.  Facts  fully  justify  this  reasoning. 

At  Bourbon,  the  government  was  more  far-sighted  ;  con 
tracts  for  labor  were  effected  through  its  care  without 
delay.  The  negroes  were  more  religious.  The  colonists, 
more  numerous,  have  shown  themselves  more  active  and 
more  resolute  ;  they  have  counted  more  upon  themselves  ; 
they  have  reduced  the  number  of  sugar-mills,  but  have 
increased  the  machinery.  Of  118  mills,  113  are  worked 
by  steam-engines  (1856).  They  have  brought  in  laborers, 
and  purchased  guano  ;  with  116  sugar-works,  they  work 
more  than  100,000  acres. 

Martinico,  with  544  sugar-works,  does  not  work  50,000 
acres;  it  has  received  but  50,000  francs'  worth  of  ma 
chinery  (1856),  while  Bourbon  has  received  530,000  francs' 


296  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

worth.  Nevertheless,  this  colony  has  uprisen.  An  ener 
getic  governor,  Admiral  de  Gueydon,  has  given  the  most 
intelligent  attention  to  the  re-organization  of  labor.  Mar- 
tiriico  has  surpassed  Guadaloupe,  to  which,  -formerly,  it  re 
mained  inferior.  The  latter  has,  notwithstanding,  more 
laborers,  more  land,  and  better  conditions.  In  short,  the 
activity  of  the  whites  has  repaired  at  Bourbon,  and  might 
have  repaired  everywhere,  the  consequences  of  the  free 
dom  of  the  negroes.  The  superiority  of  the  manufactures 
is  the  cause  of  the  prosperity  of  this  island,  much  more 
than  the  facility  of  manual  labor.  It  suffices  that  a  coun 
try  without  exceptional  conditions  prospers  with  free  labor 
ers,  to  destroy  all  excuse  elsewhere  for  retaining  them  in 
servitude. 

No  one  will  accuse  me  of  having  forgotten  material  inter 
ests,  while  I  r^sk  astonishing  or  wearying  those  who  will 
not  see  clearly  enough  the  close  tie  which  unites  the  ques 
tion  of  wealth  and  that  of  moral  progress.  It  might  have 
been  said,  —  After  all,  it  was  not  in  favor  of  the  colonists 
that  freedom  was  proclaimed  ;  they  profited  by  slavery,  they 
have  suffered  by  emancipation  ;  it  is  an  expiation  sanctioned 
by  justice.  There  are  two  or  three  million  kilogrammes  less 
of  sugar  in  the  world,  which  is  a  misfortune  ;  but  three 
hundred  thousand  human  beings  who  were  enslaved  are 
free.  Whatever  may  be  the  loss,  the  gain  exceeds  it,  and 
there  is  too  much  pity  in  the  face  of  so  magnificent  a  pro 
gress. 

This  reasoning  consoles  the  moralist,  but  does  not  per 
suade  the  interested.  Now,  the  question  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  interested.  At  Cuba,  at  Richmond,  at  Porto  Rico,  at 
New  Orleans,  at  Surinam,  at  Madrid,  at  the  Hague,  they 
wilL  not  be  satisfied  with  such  an  argument.  To  interests 
we  must  use  the  language  of  interests. 

The  moralist  himself  would  be  wrong  to  be  contented 


RESUME.  297 

with  moral  progress.     What  it  is  important  for  him  to  de 
monstrate  is,  that  what  is  morally  bad  is  not  materially  good. 

Nevertheless,  moral  progress  takes  evidently  the  first 
rank.  Now,  in  tin's  point  of  view,  the  success  of  emanci 
pation  is  complete. 

The  number  of  marriages,  of  acknowledgments,  of  legiti 
mations,  has  been  enormous.  In  the  beginning,  these  acts 
may  have  been  a  fashion  ;  the  slaves  hastened  to  be  called 
Mr.  or  Mrs. ;  the  oldest,  especially,  fell  back  into  former 
habits  ;  concubinage  is  far  from  having  disappeared.  But, 
after  all,  the  impulse  has  lasted  ;  the  freeman  has  resumed 
his  rank  in  the  esteem  of  the  woman,  whom  formerly  the 
desire  of  freedom,  the  need  of  protection,  the  love  of  dress 
or  of  comfort,  and  the  satisfactions  of  vanity,  as  well  as  the 
ascendency  of  dependence,  impelled  to  concubinage.  Chil 
dren  are  no  longer  abandoned.  The  family  is  constituted  ; 
the  love  of  property  consolidates  the  family ;  the  small 
freehold  extends  ;  the  negro  pays  taxes,  learns  to  under 
stand  French  institutions,  and  easily  adapts  himself  to  them, 
enters  at  Bourbon  into  mutual-aid  societies,  and  would  make 
deposits  in  savings  banks  if  such  were  established. 

The  schools  are  full,  though  instruction  is  neither  compul 
sory  nor  gratuitous.  Religion  is  respected,  relished,  and 
practised,  and,  under  the  authoritative  direction  of  the 
bishops,  has  regained  its  dignity,  while  extending  its  be 
neficent  influence. 

"  Three  classes  are  to  be  remarked  in  the  slave  popula 
tion/'  wrote  the  authorities  of  Guadaloupe  in  1840.*  "  The 
first,  having  an  inkling  of  civilization,  is  tolerably  inclined 
to  labor  and  economy,  and  would  not  be  greatly  averse 

to  the  family  spirit These  are  the  sedate  negroes, 

married,  or  living  as  if  they  were  so  ;  unfortunately,  they 
are  in  a  small  minority. 

"  The  second  is  composed  of  active,  vigorous  men,  but 

*  Report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  p.  134. 
13* 


298  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

without  morals  or  behavior ;  these  are  the  most  numerous. 
If  they  work,  it  is  only  to  procure  the  means  of  satisfying 
their  passion  for  women  and  drink. 

"  The  third  is  that  class  of  indifferent  idlers  who  devote 
to  sloth  and  sleep  every  moment  that  is  not  their  master's. 
Without  passions  as  without  desires,  they  would  let  them 
selves  starve  if  it  were  necessary  to  obtain  the  means  of 
existence  by  hard  labor." 

It  may  be  to-day  affirmed,  that  the  class  of  sedate,  mar 
ried  slaves,  which  was  in  the  minority,  has  become  much 
more  numerous  ;  that  the  class  of  drunken  and  licentious 
slaves  has  diminished  ;  and  that  the  idle  slaves  remain  idle, 
yet  do  not  beg  or  die  of  hunger.  I  do  not  know  whether 
a  more  satisfactory  picture  could  be  drawn  of  several  of 
the  agricultural  regions  of  France,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
manufacturing  counties. 

Is  this  to  say  that  the  colonies  are  a  paradise  ?  No  ;  but 
they  are  much  further  than  they  were  from  resembling  a 
hell. 

Is  it  to  say  that  their  situation  is  without  peril,  and  their 
prosperity  without  shadow  ? 

Not  at  all. 

In  a  moral  point  of  view,  the  reconciliation  of  the  races 
is  far  from  being  complete.  The  immigration  of  new  races, 
without  family,  without  morals,  without  God,  is  a  serious 
danger,  which  would  be  fatal  if  this  immigration  were  not 
essentially  provisional  and  strictly  superintended.  It  would 
aid  the  colonists  to  fall  back  into  their  old  habits,  to  discuss 
the  price  of  Coolies  as  they  did  formerly  that  of  negroes, 
and,  under  the  names  of  voluntary  enrolment  and  tempo 
rary  engagement,  to  practise  the  slave-trade  and  slavery, 
minus  the  words  and  appearances.  It  is  already  every  day 
increasing  immorality  and  criminality,  and  paving  the  way 
for  the  degeneration  of  the  race. 

In  a  material  point  of  view,  the  colonies,  like  European 


RESUME.  299 

communities,  have  to  struggle  against  the  general  difficul 
ties  born  of  the  present  condition  of  the  laboring  classes, 
more  capricious,  more  mobile,  more  enlightened,  and  more 
fastidious  than  heretofore  ;  since  emancipation  —  the  fact 
is  most  remarkable — the  wages  of  the  laborer  have  not  per 
ceptibly  risen  in  price,  but  less  reliance  is  evidently  to  be 
placed  on  his  labor.  They  have  to  struggle,  besides,  with 
the  special  difficulties  of  their  position  in  the  world,  —  a  pop 
ulation  too  slender  for  the  extent  of  territory,  a  territory 
which  produces  with  incomparable  fertility  the  valuable 
commodities  which  are  nevertheless  produced  also,  and  in 
constantly  increasing  quantities,  in  countries  a  hundred 
times  larger  and  a  hundred  times  more  populous,  and  the 
principal  one  of  which,  sugar,  has  become  on  the  soil  of  the 
mother  country  itself  the  object  of  a  thriving  manufacture. 

This  was  their  misfortune  forty  years  ago  ;  it  is  still  the 
same,. —  emancipation  has  no  share  in  it.  But,  thanks  to 
emancipation,  these  little  communities  come  to  the  conflict 
more  upright,  stronger,  more  active,  and  freed  from  the 
anxiety  of  a  constantly  threatening  crisis,  which  weighed 
at  once  upon  positions  and  consciences. 

They  can  brave,  and  they  solicit,  instead  of  a  single  mar 
ket,  the  free  sale  of  their  products  on  every  spot  of  the 
globe. 

This  commercial  affranchisement  is  not  the  rupture  of  the 
tie  which  binds  the  colonies  to  the  mother  country,  even 
commercially.  Habits,  existing  relations,  the  avenues  of 
credit  and  transportation,  survive  tariffs  and  regulations*. 
Politically,  is  it  to  be  feared  that  our  colonies  will  ever 
think  of  separating  from  France  ?  The  fear  is  chimerical 
If  they  were  not  French,  they  would  wish  to  be  so.  A 
great  nation,  a  great  marine,  is  necessary  to  the  protection 
of  these  little  communities,  which  would  not  exchange,  for 
the  lot  of  islets  lost  in  the  immensity  of  the  seas,  the 
honor  and  advantage  of  being  styled  external  provinces 
of  France. 


300  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

But  it  is  clear  that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  has 
loosened  one  of  the  knots  of  the  colonial  compact ;  the  ex 
istence  of  indigenous  sugar,  the  admission  of  foreign  sugar, 
the  lowering  of  the  import  duties,  the  decree  which  char 
ges  the  colonies  with  all  local  expenses,  break  another 
mesh.  The  state  no  longer  guarantees  to  the  colonies 
either  the  sale  of  their  commodities  or  the  enslavement  of 
their  laborers.  Freedom  of  products  will  be  the  conse 
quence  of  freedom  of  labor. 

This  inevitable  crisis  is  the  accomplishment  of  what  may 
be  styled  the  law  of  colonial  growth. 

The  history  of  the  colonies  presents  three  successive 
phases.  In  infancy  they  received  everything  from  the 
mother  country.  Stronger,  they  exchanged  everything 
with  her,  as  a  garden  yields  its  fruits  to  the  one  who 
has  planted  it.  Grown  with  time,  they  emerge  by  degrees 
from  these  protecting  leading-strings,  and  provide  inde 
pendently  for  the  satisfaction  of  their  needs,  and  the  sale  of 
their  products  ;  whether  powerful  enough  to  free  themselves 
enth-ely  from  the  sovereignty  of  the  mother  country,  like 
the  United  States  and  Brazil,  or,  weaker,  they  remain  like 
Cuba,  and  the  English  colonies  which  are  left,  subject  to  the 
sovereignty  of  a  mother  country,  but  only  in  the  political 
order. 

Communities,  in  the  development  of  their  commercial  or 
political  destinies,  begin  thus  by  monopoly,  and  rise  to  lib 
erty.  Men  have  thought  to  found  colonies  for  the  exclusive 
interest  of  a  nation  ;  this  narrow-sighted  patriotism  is  in 
evitably  thwarted  by  time.  If  they  had  sought  to  labor  for 
the  general  good  of  humanity,  they  would  not  have  been 
disappointed.  The  colonies  are  to  great  nations  what 
foundations  are  to  large  families.  The  day  comes  when 
they  cease  to  depend  exclusively  on  these,  but  only  when 
they  can  exist  of  themselves  ;  humanity  profits  by  them, 
and  leaves  them  the  name  of  the  founders. 


KESUME.  301 

Let  us  rise  to  higher  lessons,  while  casting  a  general 
glance  on  the  long  history  of  slavery  and  emancipation  in 
the  French  colonies. 

Slavery,  in  conclusion,  is  defended  in  a  moral  point  of 
view  by  but  a  single  motive,  —  the  education  of  an  inferior 
race.  This  motive  calmed  the  scruples  of  Louis  XIII.  and 
the  remorse  of  Louis  XVI.  ;  it  was  on  the  lips  of  the  ad 
versaries  of  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson,  and,  three  centuries 
before,  in  the  speeches  of  the  antagonists  of  Las  Casas,*  it 
was  the  sole  argument  of  the  colonists  of  Guadaloupe  and 
Jamaica  ;  it  is  the  habitual  answer  of  the  tender-hearted 
ladies  of  Havana,  it  is  the  pretext  in  the  sermons  of  the 
preachers  of  South  Carolina,  the  thesis  amplified  by  the 
writers  of  Baltimore,  the  summary  excuse  of  the  planters 
of  New  Orleans. 

They  do  not  fail  to  add,  that  slavery  is  a  means  of  con 
verting  a  heathen  race  to  Christianity. 

The  slaves,  therefore,  are  scholars  and  catechumens,  the 
masters  are  instructors  and  preachers,  the  plantations  are 
boarding-schools  and  little  seminaries,  slavery  is  a  method 
of  education  and  conversion. 

After  three  centuries  of  this  system,  freedom  is  talked  of. 
"  Take  care  !  "  exclaim  the  masters  with  oiie  voice  ;  "  you 
are  about  to  thrust  ignorant  and  depraved  beings  into  soci 
ety !  "  What!  the  education  and  conversion  of  your  schol 
ars  is  not  finished?  Either  the  pupils  are  incorrigible,  or 

*  It  is  known  that  Charles  V.  presided,  in  1513,  at  Barcelona,  over  a  solemn 
conference,  to  listen  to  Quevedo,  Bishop  of  Darien,  and  Barthelemy  de  Las  Casas, 
the  illustrious  and  indefatigable  protector  of  the  Indians,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Admiral  of  the  Indies,  Don  Diego  Columbus.  The  Bishop  of  Darien  declared 
that  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  New  World  whom  he  had  observed  appeared  to 
him  a  species  of  men  designed  for  servitude,  through  the  inferiority  of  their 
intellect  and  natural  talents,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  instruct  them, 
or  caiase  them  to  make  any  progress  towards  civilization,  unless  held  under 
the  continual  authority  of  a  master.  Las  Casas  rose  with  indignation  at  the 
idea  that  there  was  any  race  of  men  born  for  servitude,  and  attacked  this 
opinion  as  irreligious,  inhuman,  and  false  in  practice.  —  Robertson,  History  of 
America,  Book  111. 


302  THE   FRENCH   COLONIES. 

the  method  is  bad  ;  it  is  time  to  change  it  and  to  renounce 
this  pitiful  argument.  The  fears  of  the  masters  give  the 
lie  to  their  promises. 

By  the  grace  of  God,  servitude  is  decidedly  not  a  means 
of  civilizing  or  converting  any  member  of  the  human 
family.  The  true  doctors  of  the  faith  know  this  well.  To 
one  of  the  sovereigns  who  had  suffered  himself  to  be  touched 
by  this  hope  of  conversion,  John,  king  of  Portugal,  mark 
what  Pope  Benedict  XIV.  wrote,  December  20,  1741  :  — 

"  Men  who  call  themselves  Christians  so  far  forget  the 
sentiment  of  charity  diffused  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  to  reduce  to  servitude  the  unhappy  Indians,  the 
people  of  the  eastern  arid  western  coasts  of  Brazil,  and 

other  regions Much  more,  they  sell  them,  they  despoil 

them  of  their  goods,  and  the  inhumanity  which  they  display 
against  them  is  the  chief  cause  which  turns  them  away 
from  embracing  the  faith  of  Christ,  by  making  them  look 
on  it  only  with  horror." 

A  century  before,  in  163*7,  one  of  the  first  missionaries 
and  the  first  historian  of  the  colonies,  Du  Tertre,  pointed 
out  the  same  cause  as  the  principal  obstacle  to  the  promul 
gation  of  the  Gospel. 

Two  centuries  after,  in  1853,  the  first  Council  held  in 
France,  after  the  emancipation  of  our  colonies,  the  Council 
of  Rochelle,  pronounced  these  noble  words  :  "  The  Catholic 
Church  has  always  mourned  the  harsh  servitude  imposed  on 
innumerable  human  beings,  to  the  great  detriment  of  their 
souls, — in  animarum  suarum  perniciem."  * 

Bow  is  it  that  the  partisans  and  adversaries  of  slavery 
invoke,  on  both  sides,  the  support  of  the  Christian  religion? 
The  benefactor  of  men  in  servitude,  it  alone  teaches  how  to 
endure  so  great  an  evil  ;  the  moderator  of  men  restored  to 
freedom,  it  alone  teaches  not  to  abuse  so  great  a  good.  Re 
ligion,  after  having  taught  the  master  kindness  and  the  slave 

*  Acta  Concilii  Rupellctisis,  Cap.  VI.  I.  p.  51. 


RESUME.  303 

patience,  inspires  both  with  the  desire  of  affranchisement ; 
and  it  is  to  it  again  that  we  turn  to  arrange  the  transition 
to  freedom,  and  to  temper  its  consequences.  Religion  is  not 
liberty,  but  the  mother  and  first  instructress  of  liberty. 

How  is  the  slave  raised  to  the  rank  of  freeman  ?  By  three 
degrees,  —  religion,  family,  and  property.  How  does  the 
freeman  descend  to  the  level  of  the  slave?  By  losing 
property,  family,  and  religion.  What  does  Socialism  make 
of  men,  therefore,  by  ravishing  from  them  these  essential 
goods  ?  Slaves. 

Slavery  would  never  have  disappeared  from  the  French 
colonies  without  a  very  strong  central  power T  we  see  this 
clearly  from  the  United  States  ;  it  is  one  of  the  cases  in 
which  the  initiative  cannot  come  from  the  individual  inter 
est,  since  it  is  this  interest  itself  which  it  is  in  question  to 
subdue.  But  the  central  power  would  have  done  nothing 
if  public  opinion  had  not  been  free  and  greatly  excited  ;  we 
see  this  clearly  from  the  roign  of  Louis  XV.  or  of  Napoleon. 
We  see  it  also  from  Spain.  A  concentrated  power  works 
out  great  designs,  on  condition  that  they  are  counselled  by 
a  free  public  opinion.  Power  has  the  virtues,  but  also  the 
faults  of  experience,  from  which  come  incredulity,  tardiness, 
and  an  easy  resignation  to  what  are  called  necessary  evils. 
Public  opinion  is  the  conscience  ;  it  experiences  remorse,  it 
looks  to  the  ideal,  and  is  generous,  even  in  chimeras.  If 
slavery  had  not  caused  the  remorse  of  public  opinion,  eman 
cipation  would  not  have  become  the  design  of  power  ;  the 
latter  pronounced  emancipation,  the  former  desired  it. 

What  is  the  best  mode  of  emancipation  ? 

The  experience  of  the  French  colonies  answers  us,  —  im 
mediate  and  simultaneous  emancipation. 

By  waiting,  we  obtain  nothing  ;  by  venturing,  we  risk 
nothing.  For  two  centuries  the  colonies  waited  for  the  hour 
to  strike,  and  it  never  came.  Twice  freedom  was  hurled 
upon  them  with  revolution  ;  twice  revolution  did  much 


304  THE  FRENCH  COLONIES. 

harm,  freedom  very  little.  The  negro  race  is  so  gentle, 
that  under  the  yoke  it  makes  no  resistance  ;  free  from  the 
yoke,  it  commits  no  abuses.  Liberty  has  not  the  virtue 
of  restoring  to  it  the  faculties  denied  it  by  the  Creator  ; 
alone,  deprived,  as  at  St.  Domingo,  of  the  intellect  of  the 
whites,  it  will  return  to  a  slothful  life,  and  give  birth  to  a 
very  inferior  state  of  society.  But,  after  all,  under  this  cli 
mate,  which  enervates  the  whites,  after  essaying  all  the  races 
one  after  another  to  replace  the  negro  race,  we  are  forced  to 
return  again  to  the  latter  ;  we  find  none  more  vigorous  or 
submissive,  more  capable  of  devotion,  more  accessible  to 
Christianity/ more  happy  to  escape  its  native  degradation. 
This  race  of  men,  like  all  the  human  species,  is  divided 
into  two  classes,  the  diligent  and  the  idle  ;  freedom  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  second,  while  it  draws  from  the  labor 
of  the  first  a  better  yield  than  servitude. 

Slavery  was  so  little  founded  on  nature,  that,  created  by 
brute  force,  it  was  maintained  only  by  legal  force,  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  'constraint  of  an  infinite  number  of  laws  and 
regulations.  To  pave  the  way  for  the  transition  to  liberty, 
a  no  less  number  were  framed  ;  eighteen  decrees  were  pro 
mulgated  for  the  guidance  of  freedom  in  its  infancy.  Now 
all  laws  against  the  dangers  of  servitude  have  been  impo 
tent,  all  measures  against  the  perils  of  freedom  have  been 
useless.  Doubtless,  the  ancient  kings,  who  were  Christian, 
humane,  and  sincere,  said  to  themselves  in  permitting  slav 
ery,  "  Let  us  take  the  greatest  precautions  that  the  evil 
may  do  good."  In  abolishing  it,  the  reformers  said,  in  their 
turn,  with  equal  good  faith,  "  Let  us  take  care  that  the 
good  does  no  evil."  Twofold  error !  Evil  engenders  evil  ; 
good  does  nothing  but  good. 

But  we  do  not  pass  from  evil  to  good  without  expiation, 
and  we  do  not  make  expiation  without  suffering.  The  his 
tory  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  French  colonies  is  an 
almost  scientific  proof  of  these  great  laws  of  morality. 


BOOK    SECOND. 

ENGLISH    COLONIES. 
GHAPTER    I. 

SLAVERY  IN   ENGLAND  AND  ITS   COLONIES  UNTIL  THE  EMAN 
CIPATION  BILL  OF  AUGUST  28,  1833. 

THE  history  of  slavery  is  connected  with  the  history  of 
England  by  five  memorable  dates. 

What  Africa  is  to-day,  England  was  in  former  times. 
What  the  English  think  to-day  of  the  Africans,  the  Romans 
thought  in  former  times  of  the  English. 

Caesar  tells  us  that  the  Britons  sacrificed  human  victims,* 
Diodorus  Siculus  affirms  that  they  ate  human  flesh, f  Cicero 
writes,  that  the  only  booty  to  be  brought  back  from  this 
barbarous  land  was  brutalized  slaves,J  Strabo  relates  that 
these  slaves  were  sold  like  cattle,  and  often  offered  in  the 
markets  of  Rome.§ 

The  historian  Lingard,  in  recounting  this  testimony,  adds  : 
"The  savages  of  Africa  sell  to  the  Europeans  negroes  taken 
in  war  or  the  chase  ;  more  barbarous,  the  conquerors  of 
Britain  sold  without  scruple  their  fellow-countrymen,  and 
even  their  own  children." 

To  what  does  Great  Britain  owe  the  disappearance  of 
these  abominable  crimes  ?  To  Christianity.  To  whom  is 

*  Bell  Gall,  Lib.  VI.  Cap.  16. 
t  Lib.  V.  Cap.  32. 
\  Ad.  Alt,  Lib.  IV.  Cap.  16. 

§  Buxton,  The  Slave-Trade,  Introduction,  p.  14,  according  to  Henry.  History 
of  England,  Vol.  II.  p.  225. 


306  THE   ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

she  indebted  for  her  conversion  to  Christianity  ?    To  a  Pope 
and  to  slaves. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  (403),  an  Irishman, 
named  Cothraige,  made  a  slave  at  sixteen  among  the  Gauls, 
twice  delivered  and  twice  enslaved,  became  St.  Patrick,  the 
apostle  of  Ireland.  Half  a  century  after,  he  smote  a  petty 
king  of  Britain,  named  Carotic  or  Caractacus,  with  anath 
ema, 'and  commanded  Christians  no  longer  to  eat  or  drink 
with  a  prince  guilty  of  having  reduced  to  slavery  the  ser 
vants  of  Jesus  Christ.* 

The  venerable  Bedef  recounts  that,  in  577,  St.  Gregory 
the  Great,  thirteen  years  before  becoming  Pope,  was  walk 
ing  in  the  market  of  Rome,  when  he  spied  among  the  ob 
jects  exposed  for  sale  some  children  with  fair  skin,  fine 
features,  and  light,  curling  hair.  He  asked  from  what 
country  they  came,  and  was  told  that  they  were  from  the 
island  of  Britain.  He  then  asked  of  what  .religion  they 
were,  and  was  informed  that  they  were  heathens.  "  What 
a  pity,"  exclaimed  he,  sighing,  "to  see  the  prince  of  dark 
ness  rule  over  so  transparent  a  skin,  and  so  beautiful  a 
brow  cover  a  soul  wholly  devoid  of  grace  !  What  is  the 
name  of  their  nation  ?"  "  They  are  Angles,  Angli."  "It 
is  well  said,  for  they  resemble  angels,  Angeli ;  I  wish  that 
the  angels  had  such  Christians  in  heaven.  What  is  the 
name  of  their  province  ?  "  "  Dcira."  "  Which  signifies 
de  ira  eruti,  snatched  from  the  heavenly  wrath  and  called 
to  the  mercy  of  Christ.  How  is  their  king  called  ?  " 
"  Aella."  "Alleluia,  —  the  praises  of  God  must  be  sung 
in  these  regions."  Immediately  after  this  ingenious  and 
charitable  dialogue,  Gregory  went  to  entreat  the  Pope  to 

*  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland,  Vol.  I.  Chap.  IV.  9  Mgr.  England,  Letter 
VIII.  141. 

t  See  the  original,  complete  in  Appendix.  See  also  the  Moines  d1  Occident, 
by  Count  de  Montalembert. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  307 

send  missionaries  to  the  Angles,  and  offered  himself  to  bear 
to  them  the  Word  of  God.  The  pontiff  gave  him  permis 
sion,  but  the  people  of  Rome  were  unwilling  to  let  him 
undertake  so  distant  a  journey.  On  becoming  Pope,  in 
580,  he  followed  out  his  generous  project,  ransomed  the 
young  English  slaves,  and  placed  them  in  a  monastery,  in 
order  to  fit  them  to  become  missionaries  to  their  country. 
Their  progress  was  not  rapid  enough  to  satisfy  his  impa 
tience,  and  he  despatched  forty  missionaries  to  Britain, 
under  the  guidance  of  St.  Augustine.  On  reaching  Aix,  in 
Provence,  the  recitals  which  they  heard  of  the  barbarity  of 
the  kings  of  the  Heptarchy  made  them  pause.  They  sent 
to  represent  to  the  Pope  the  difficulties  and  probable  abor- 
tiveness  of  such  a  ^mission  among  a  ferocious  people,  of 
whom  they  did  not  even  know  the  language.  He  enjoined 
them  to  proceed,  and  recommended  them  to  the  French 
bishops  and  the  kings  Theodoric  and  Theodebert.  A  few 
years  after,  the  island  of  Britain  was  converted.* 

Servitude  did  not  disappear  immediately,  but  rapidly  soft 
ened  under  the  breath  of  the  Gospel  preached  everywhere 
by  ardent  missionaries.  The  conquered  became  assimilated 
to  the  conquerors.  Humanity  tempered  the  fierceness  of 
strife.  Property  became  more  secure,  human  life  more 
sacred.  The  lovo  of  fraternity,  the  proof  of  equality,  the 
idea  of  liberty,  entered  into  souls,  while  the  baptismal  waters 
traced  their  majestic  symbol  upon  every  brow.  The  child 
and  the  servant  found  a  hitherto  unknown  protection  in  the 
law.f  Marvelous  examples  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  behold 
ers.  Bishop  Wilfrid  received  of  the  king  of  Sussex  the 
island  of  Anglesea,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  slaves  ;  he 
baptized  and  freed  them.  Lanfranc  obtained  of  William  the 
Conqueror  the  interdiction  of  the  slave-trade.  There,  as  in 

*  England,  Letter  IX.,  On  Domestic  Slavery.     Blatey,  Temporal  Benefit  of 
Christianity. 

t  Lingard,  Ant.  Anglo-Saxon      England,  loc.  cit. 


308  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

the  rest  of  the  world,  the  Church  did  not  rudely  break  the 
bond  of  servitude,  but  she  profited  by  it  ;  she  did  not  im 
pose  on  the  master  a  constraint  which  he  would  have  vio 
lated  ;  she  did  not  precipitate  the  slave  into  an  independence 
which  he  would  have  abused,  and  from  which  he  would  have 
suffered :  she  proclaimed  the  truth ;  she  showed  the  way ; 
she  brought  fresh  life.  Nevertheless,  the  inflexibility  of  the 
Saxon  character,  foreign  invasions,  and  the  disorders  which 
they  involved,  prolonged  the  existence  of  servitude  in  Eng 
land  two  centuries  longer  than  in  France,  Italy,  arid  Ger 
many.*  The  sale  of  slaves  to  foreign  countries  was  pro 
scribed  in  1009  by  the  Council  of  Aenham,f  convoked  by 
King  Ethelred  at  the  entreaty  of  Archbishops  Elfeag  of 
Canterbury  and  Ulstan  of  York.  The  sale  of  slaves  within 
the  dominion  was  solemnly  condemned  by  the  Council  of 
1102, |  convoked  by  Henry  I.,  at  the  prayer  of  St.  Anselm,§ 
and  held,  under  his  presidency,  in  that  city  of  London 
where,  seven  years  after,  the  Parliament  hesitated  before 
the  same  prohibition. 

In  a  third  Council,  that  of  Armagh, ||  held  by  Henry  II., 

*  Moehler,  Abolition  de  Pesclavage  par  le  Christlanisme  dans  les  quinze  premiers 
siedes,  translated  by  the  Abbe"  de  la  Treiche,  Chap.  IX.  pp.  289,  290,  and  notes 
63,  54. 

t  Cone.  Achamense,  Lib.  I.  c.  77:  "  Sapientes  decernunt  ut  nemo  christianum 
et  insontem  pretio  tradat  extra  patriam." 

J  Cunc.il.  Land.  Hard.,  Tom.  VI.  Pars  II.  p.  1863,  Lib.  I.  Cap.  27:  "  Ne  quis 
illud  nefarium  negotium,  quo  hactenus  in  Anglia  solebant  homines  sicut  bruta 
animalia  venumdari  deinceps  ullatenus  praesumat." 

§  Re"musat,  Saint-Ansehne,  p.  163. 

||  Cone.  Lond.,  Girald  Cambreus.  Hibern.  Expug.,  Cap.  XXVIII.:  "  Convocato 
apud  Ardmachiani  totius  Hiberniaa  clero,  et  super  advenarum  in  insulam  ad- 
ventu  tractato  diutius  et  deliberate,  tandem  communis  omnium  in  hac  sententia 
resedit  propter  peccata  silicet  populi  sui,  eoque  prcecipue  quod  Anglos  olim,  tarn 
a  mercatoribus  quam  a  prasdonibus  et  piratis,  emere  passim  et  in  servitutem 
redigere  consueverant,  divinae  censura  vindictae  hostis  incommodum,  ut  et  ipsi 

quoque  et  eadem  geute  in  servitutem  vice  reciproca  jam  redigantur De- 

cretum  est  itaque  in  prasdicto  concilio  et  cum  universitatis  consensu  publico 
Btatutum,  ut  Angli  ubique  per  insulam,  servitutis  vinculo  mancipati,  in  pristi- 
uam  revoceutur  libertatem." 


HISTORY   OF   EMANCIPATION.  309 

the  Irish  bishops  loudly  proclaimed  that  all  the  misfortunes 
of  their  country  were  the  just  punishment  of  the  perpetuated 
crime  of  slavery,  and  freed  all  the  English  captives  in  the 
island. 

Servitude  had  nearly  disappeared  from  England  at  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  century,  at  the  epoch  of  the  Norman 
Conquest.*  Five  hundred  years  afterwards,  this  nation, 
emancipated  from  slavery,  converted  "through  slaves,  ar 
rived  at  the  highest  degree  of  power,  did  not  blush  in  its 
turn  to  reduce  men  to  servitude.  On  that  vast  continent 
of  North  America,  which  she  received  from  Providence  as 
a  gift  as  magnificent  as  unexpected,  won  to  the  mother 
country  by  those  whom  she  proscribed,  England,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  imposed  slavery.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  she  employed  her  vessels  to  transport  slaves ; 
she  made  this  monopoly  the  object  of  her  covetousness, 
and,  at  the  time  of  the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  one  of  the  con 
ditions  of  the  peace  of  Europe.  By  an  agreement  of  May 
26,  1713,  known  by  the  name  of  the  treaty  of  Asientofi 
negotiated  by  John,  Archbishop  of  Bristol,  and  Lord 
Strafford,  his  Britannic  Majesty  received  of  his  Catholic 
Majesty  the  ignoble  privilege  of  transporting  to  Spanish 
America  144,000  head  of  Indians,  in  consideration  of  33£ 
piasters  a  head,  and  numerous  other  advantages.  Both 
kings  reserved  an  interest  in  the  affair. 

Thus  the  race  which  was  the  first  in  Europe  to  suffer 
slavery,  and  the  last  to  emerge  from  it,  was  the  first 
to  impose  it  on  other  nations,  but  the  first  to  rise  again 
from  it.  It  had  owed  its  affranchisement  to  Christianity, 
it  owed  to  it  its  repentance.  It  is  well  known  that  to  the 
heroic  perseverance  of  a  handful  of  Christians  reverts  all 
the  honor  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  in  1807,  then 

*  Yanoski,  De  I1  Abolition  de  Pesclavage  au  moyen  age,   Paris,  1860. 
t   Tratados,  etc.,  by  Alejander  de  Cantillon,  Madrid  (Archives  of  Foreign 
Affairs). 


310  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

of  slavery,  in  1834.  Before  studying  the  results  and  influ 
ence  of  these  measures  on  the  Britannic  possessions,  we 
will  rapidly  sketch  the  imposing  picture  of  the  colonial 
greatness  of  the  first  maritime  power  in  the  world. 

It  is  a  known  fact,  that  the  immense  development  of  the 
English  colonies  dates  no  further  back  than  the  last  two 
centuries, — witnesses  of  the  parallel  decrease  of  the  colonial 
greatness  of  Spain,  Holland,  and,  it  must  be  added,  France. 

In  1578,  Queen  Elizabeth  authorized  Sir  Humphrey  Gil 
bert  to  discover  and  occupy  distant  countries  peopled  by 
idolaters.  In  1584,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  formed  a  settlement 
in  Virginia.  But  it  is  only  from  the  time  of  James  I.  and 
Charles  I.,  before  the  Civil  War,  then  of  Cromwell  and 
Charles  II.,  that  we  can  date  the  infant,  yet  erelong  vast, 
impulse  of  the  foundations  of  England  beyond  the  seas. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1860,  two  sons  of  the  Queen 
of  England  set  out,  the  one  to  inaugurate  a  bridge  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  in  Canada,  the  other  to  lay  the-  corner-stone 
of  a  jetty  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  while  their  father, 
Prince  Albert,  offered  congratulations,  in  a  public  speech, 
for  this  incomparable  greatness  of  a  nation,  mistress  at 
once  of  the  northern  boundary  of  America  and  the  south 
ern  point  of  Africa.  The  same  flag  is  planted  on  English 
ground  in  the  most  extended  regions  of  Asia  and  Oceanica. 
An  Englishman  cannot  know  the  territory  of  his  country 
without  unrolling  entire  the  map  of  the  world. 

In  ASIA,  the  merchants  who,  under  the  name  of  the  East 
India  Company,  established  warehouses  at  Bantam  (1602), 
at  Surat  (1612),  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel  (1640),  and  on 
the  Hooghly  (1656),  with  the  assent  of  the  mother  country, 
showed  themselves  by  degrees  bellicose  and  encroaching 
Warehouses  were  transformed  into  fortresses  ;  possessions 
swelled  into  provinces  ;  soldiers  were  armed,  kings  de 
throned,  peoples  subdued  or  purchased  ;  Mogul  was  in 
vaded  (1687) :  Bombay,  Madras,  and  Bengal  became  English 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  311 

presidencies.  The  company  received  charters,  and  its  enter 
prises  presented  England,  in  less  than  seventy-five  years, 
with  more  than  130,000,000  subjects. 

In  1796,  Colonel  Stuart  took  Ceylon  from  the  Dutch. 

Half  a  century  after  (1843),  China  was  forced  to  cede 
Hong  Kong,  and,  in  1860,  the  territory  of  Coolon.  In  1857, 
Europe  suffered  the  invasion,  in  the  Red  Sea,  of  the  island 
of  Perim,  occupied,  it  was  said,  for  the  purpose  of  building 
a  light-house,  but  rather -to  lodge  there  a  keeper  of  the 
gates  erelong  to  be  opened  through  the  Isthmus  of  Suez. 

New  conquests  brought  new  annexations  in  India.  This 
great  empire,  convulsed  by  a  rebellion  which  is  not  yet 
completely  subdued,  passed,  in  1858,  from  the  hands  of  the 
company  to  the  direct  government  of  the  state. 

By  dint  of  energy  or  astuteness,  by  arms  or  policy,  and 
in  different  conditions  of  prosperity  or  agitation,  of  faithful 
or  fragile  attachment,  England  possesses,  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  an  aggregate  population  of  171,000,000  inhabitants, 
an  army  of  300,000  men,  a  revenue  of  14,000,000  francs,  and 
a  commerce  whose  transactions  exceed  1,000,000,000  francs, 
and  employ  nearly  30,000  vessels.* 

In  AFRICA,  the  East  India  Company  took  possession 
(1651)  of  St.  Helena,  abandoned  by  the  Dutch,  the  rocks 
of  which  were  to  be  the  living  tomb  of  the  great  captain 
whose  triumphs  and  reverses  would  one  day  destroy,  then 
aggrandize,  the  colonial  power  of  England. 

Gambia,  polluted  by  a  traffic  in  slaves,  the  profits  of 
which  were  shared  by  England  and  Spain,  fell  from  one 

*  Revue  cokniak,  1858,  p.  820.  Ibid.,  1847,  No.  17,  p.  86.  Official  Statistics 
of  1855. 

Superficies          .        .        .        .•      ,  •-       •  .      •     .   •        1,367,193  sq.  miles. 
Population      ....        .        ,        .        ...        171,859,055 
Army          .         .         .        .        .        .        ...  281,910 

Revenue  .: '     •     1,406,672,300  fr. 

Imports^     ....        .        .        , .  .•'     '..         1,000,000,000  fr. 

Exports  > 

Navigation,  26,000  vessels,  gauged  at  from  3,000,000  to  4,000  000  tons. 


312  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

bankruptcy  to  another,  from  the  hands  of  the  company,  who 
surrendered  it  in  1713  to  this  infamous  trade,  to  the  hands 
of  tne  crown  (1821),  already  placed  in  possession  of  the 
Gold  Coast  (1772)  by  a  treaty  with  France,  and  of  Sierra 
Leone  by  a  treaty  with  the  native  princes  (1787). 

Taken  (1797,)  restored  (1799),  then  retaken  from  the 
Dutch  (1805),  the  colony  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  be 
came  an  important  possession,  to  which  the  crown,  by 
simple  declarations,  annexed  in  18-44  Natal,  and  in  1847 
Caffraria,  which  received  (1848-1854)  distinct  governors. 

The  fairest  of  all  the  African  colonies, — the  island  of 
Mauritius,  —  possessed  by  France,  whose  name  it  bore  for 
a  century  (1710-1810),  was  wrested  from  us  by  General 
Abercrombie,  and  the  treaty  of  Paris  ratified  this  conquest 
(1814).  _ 

Less  important  than  the  colonies  of  Asia,  the  African  col 
onies  give  to  England  nearly  1,000,000  subjects.  About 
3,000  vessels  serve  a  commerce  which  exceeds  160,000,000 
francs. 

NORTH  AMERICA  belonged  almost  entirely  to  England,  be 
fore  belonging  to  itself.  If  it  has  lost  this  vast  and  mag 
nificent  domain,  England  has  at  least  preserved  or  acquired 
twenty-five  colonies  in  this  part  of  the  world.  It  owes 
them  to  the  adventurous  audacity  of  its  sons ;  as  the  Barba- 
does  (1605),  the  three  hundred  little  islands  which  form  the 
group  of  the  Bermudas  (1611),  St.  Christopher  (1628),  Ne 
vis  (1628),  Monserrat  (1632)  ; — or  to  the  sagacious  grasp 
of  its  kings ;  as  Antigua,  given  by  Charles  I.  to  Lord  Car 
lisle ;  the  fifty  Virgin  Islands  (1648),  given  by  Charles  II.  to 
Sir  William  Stapleton;  Barbadoes,  given  to  the  Codding- 
ton  family,  in  consideration  of  a  certain  number  of  turtle 
(1684)  ;  Hudson's  Bay,  conceded  to  Prince  Rupert  and  a 
company  of  merchants  by  Charles  II.  (1668-1713);  Van 
couver's  Island,  annexed  by  Queen  Victoria  (1849);  New 
Brunswick  (1783);  the  Falkland  Islands  (1833);  —  or  to  the 


PISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  313 

more  or  less  loyal  conquests  over  the  Spaniards  ;  as  the 
valuable  island  of  Jamaica,  one  of  the  four  large  Antilles 
(1655);  Honduras  Bay  (1714);  Bahama  (1783);  Trinidad 
(1797);  —  or  over  Holland  and  France;  as  Guiana  (1803); 
Nova  Scotia  (formerly  Acadia),  and  Cape  Breton  (1714- 
1758);  the  ever  to  be  regretted  land  of  Canada  (1759); 
Prince  Edward's  Island,  Dominica,  St.  Vincent,  Granada 
(1763);  Tobago  (1794);  St.  Lucia  (1815). 

The  twenty-five  American  colonies  represent  in  the  offi 
cial  statistics  a  population  of  2,500,000  inhabitants,  and  a 
commerce  employing  15,000  vessels,  and  transporting  the 
value  of  800,000,000  francs. 

Captured  and  recaptured,  several  of  our  colonies  returned 
to  their  first  possessor,  but  to  be  soon  lost  again,  and  each 
of  the  fatal  treaties  which  terminated  our  great  wars  —  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht  (1713),  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle 
(1748),  the  treaty  of  Paris  (1763),  and  lastly,  the  treaties 
of  1814  and  1815,  —  let  our  colonies  fall,  as  a  sort  of  odd 
change .  and  balance,  into  the  hands  of  England ;  they 
brought  to  it,  and  ravished  from  us,  perhaps  for  long  cen 
turies,  the  empire  of  the  seas  and  sceptre  of  the  world. 

The  nineteenth  century  was  destined  to  open  to  England 
a  new  part  of  the  world,  and  to  continue  the  astonishing 
dissemination  of  the  Saxon  race  over  the  surface  of  the 
earth. 

France  discovered  AUSTRALIA,  the  Hollander  Tasman  dis 
covered  Van  Diernen's  Land ;  England  occupies,  peoples, 
and  possesses  these  vast  regions.  From  1788  to  1840,  it 
sent  80,000  convicts  to  the  eastern  coast  of  Australia,  and 
founded  Sydney.  At  the  same  epoch,  it  cut  off  New  Zea 
land  from  New  South  Wales,  but  sent  no  colonists  there 
until  1814.  In  1803,  it  deported  convicts  to  Tasmania,  and 
founded  Hobart  Town.  Norfolk  Island  was  annexed  in 
1834 ;  Western  Australia  had  been  occupied  five  years  pre^ 
vious  (1829),  and  the  town  of  Perth  settled.  In  1834  South- 

14 


314:  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

ern  Australia  was  declared  an  English  colony,  and  received 
for  its  capital  the  town  of  Adelaide. 

In  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  on  this  land  vaster 
than  Europe,  cities  are  founded,  churches  and  schools  dif 
fuse  moral  civilization,  railroads  offer  themselves  to  inter 
course,  an  empire  rises  like  ancient  Rome  from  a  den  of 
robbers,  and  England  counts  there  700,000  subjects,  a 
budget  of  80,000,000  francs,  a  transportation  of  4,000  ves 
sels,  a  commerce  of  400,000,000  francs. 

We  will  mention,  to  be  complete,  the  colonies  of  EUROPE, 
—  the  islands  which  guard  our  coast  of  La  Mancha,  Gib 
raltar,  which  weighs  on  Spain  and  shamefully  protects  Mo 
rocco,  Malta,  and  the  Ionian  Isles,  whose  name,  language, 
spirit,  arid  prayers  belong  to  Greece,  —  all  these  ports, 
which  are  not  colonies,  all  thes"e  lands,  which  are- rather 
the  captives  of  English  policy  than  the  offspring  of  its 
civilizing  genius. 

In  a  speech  delivered  February  8,  1850,  Lord  John  Rus 
sell  thus  enumerated  the  colonial  acquisitions  of  England, 
in  chronological  order.  From  1600  to  1700,  Nova  Scotia, 
New  Brunswick,  Prince  Edward's  Island,  Newfoundland, 
the  Bermudas,  Jamaica,  Honduras,  the  Bahamas,  Barba- 
does,  Antigua,  Montserrat,  St.  Christopher,  Nevis,  the 
Virgin  Islands,  Gambia,  St.  Helena,  —  sixteen  colonies. 
From  1700  to  1793,  Canada,  St.  Vincent,  Grenada,  Tobago, 
Dominica,  Gibraltar,  Sierra  Leone,  the  Gold  Coast,  New 
South  Wales, — ten  colonies.  From  1793  to  1815,  St. 
Lucia,  Guiana,  Trinidad,  Malta,  the  Cape,  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  Mauritius,  Ceylon,  —  eight  colonies. 

If  Western  and  Southern  Australia  and  the  Falkland  Isl 
ands  be  added,  there  is,  without  counting  the  Indian  Em 
pire,  and  after  the  loss  of  the  United  States,  a  total  of 
thirty-seven  colonies,  acquired  in  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Taking  them  in  geographical  order,  there  are  :  — 

In  Asia,  three  presidencies,  embracing  eighty-live  king- 


HISTOKY  OF  EMANCIPATION. 

doms  or  provinces,  with  an  extent  of  1,367,193  square  miles, 
and  1U, 859, 055  inhabitants  ;  with  an  island  and  harbor  on 
the  territory  of  China  ; 

In  Africa,  six  continental  colonies  and  two  islands  ; 

In  America,   six   continental   colonies,    2,480,326   inhab 
itants,  and  nineteen  islands ; 

In  Australia,  three  vast  continental  colonies  and  two  isl 
ands. 

In  the  whole,  one  fourth  of  the  civilized  world,  pec 
pled  by  nearly  2,000,000  men,  furnishing  to  the  industry 
of  the  mother  country  outlets  worth,  at  the  present  time, 
1,500,000,000  francs,  and  to  its  commerce  a  business  ex 
ceeding  1,000,000  francs,  and  corresponding  to  the  naviga 
tion  on  the  seas  of  more  than  100,000  vessels  of  all  nations.* 

The  aggregate  expenditures  of  the  English  colonies,  with 
out  including  India,  are  220,983,000  francs,  viz.  :  — 

Local  expenses  of  the  chartered  colonies        .         .     69,705,000  fr. 

Local  expenses  of  the  colonies  of  the  crown       . 

Expenses  of  the  state  or  sovereignty  f  •         •         .     88,958,00 

Total 220,983,000  fr. 

The  receipts  are  117,904,000  francs,  viz.  :- 

For  the  state          .         •         •         •  •         •          

«      «    chartered  colonies          ....         72,423,000  fr. 
«      «    colonies  of  the  crown        .         .         •         .     45,481,000 

Total 117,904,000  fr. 

The  excess  of  receipts   over   expenditures  is,  therefore, 
103,079,000  francs. 

In  an  administrative  point  of  view,  the  colonies  are  di- 

*  Statistical  Tables  relating  to  the  Colonial  and  other  Possessions  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  1856.     Revue  coloniale,  1857,  p.  85;  1858,  p.  833.     Colonial 
Constitutions,  by  Mr.  Mills.     See  also  the  Tables  of  Montgomery,  Martin,  and 
Porter  in  the  sequel  of  the  Report  of  Jules  Lechevalier. 

't  Military  expenditures      .        .        .        ....      .     75,082,000  fr. 

Civil  "  •        •       ,        ••'•• 

Maritime         "  .... 

(Official  Statistics  of  1851, 1852.     Revu 


1  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

vided  into  military  and  maritime  stations,  settlements  and 
colonies,  and  penal  settlements. 

In  a  more  special  point  of  view,  they  are  divided  into 
chartered  colonies,  and  colonies  of  the  crown* 

The  chartered  colonies  are  Antigua,  Bahama;  Barbadoes, 
Guiana,  ,  the  Bermudas,  Canada,  Dominica,  Grenada,  Ja 
maica,  Honduras,  Montserrat,  Nevis,  Newfoundland,  Nova 
Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  New  Wales,  Prince  Edward's 
Island,  St.  Christopher,  St.  Vincent,  Tobago,  the  Virgin 
Islands,  and  Victoria. 

The  colonies  of  the  crown  are  the  Cape,  Ceylon,  the 
Falkland  Islands,  Gambia,  Gibraltar,  the  Gold  Coast,  Hong 
Kong,  Labuan,  Malta,  Mauritius,  Natal,  New  Zealand,  St. 
Helena,  St.  Lucia,  Sierra  Leone,  Trinidad,  Southern  and 
Western  Australia,  and  Van  Diemen's  Land. 

Among  these  possessions,  some  were  free  colonies,  others 

*  It  is  said,  It  is  despotism  that  is  new;  liberty  is  old.  This  saying  applies 
precisely  to  the  system  of  the  English  colonies.  A  new  contradiction  of  that 
historical  theory  which  considers  liberty  as  a  fruit  slowly  matured  on  the  vigor 
ous  stem  of  absolute  power!  When  the  king  of  England  gave  Barbadoes  to 
Lord  Carlisle,  in  1627,  he  authorized  hirn,  as  well  as  his  heirs,  to  frame  such  laws 
'  as  they  might  deem  useful,  with  the  consent,  assent,  and  approbation  of  the 
free  inhabitants  of  the  said  province,  or  a  majority  among  them.  "  We  wish, 
moreover,"  adds  the  patent,  "  through  a  sovereign  concession,  which  shall  bind 
our  heirs  and  successors,  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  province,  them 
selves  and  their  children  born  or  to  be  born,  shall  enjoy  the  same  liberty  as  if 
they  had  been  born  in  England;  so  that  they  may  receive,  take,  keep,  purchase, 
possess,  give,  sell,  and  bequeath,  according  to  their  good  pleasure,  and  also  freely 
enjoy  all  liberties,  franchises,  and  privileges  enjoyed  by  our  subjects  in  England, 
without  hinderance,  molestation,  annoyance,  damage,  or  trouble  on  our  part,  and 
on  the  part  of  our  heirs  and  successors." 

Who  thus  insures  liberty  to  Barbadoes?  Charles  I.  Cromwell  gave  a  mili 
tary  government  to  Jamaica;  it  received  a  constitutional  government  from  the 
hands  of  Charles  II. ;  and  the  counsellors  of  James  IF.  opposed  the  levying  of 
any  subsidy  without  the  consent  of  the  inhabitants  or  an  act  of  Parliament. 
The  same  liberties  were  assured  to  Grenada  in  1763.  (Speech  of  Lord  John 
Russell,  already  quoted.)  Unfortunate  kings!  why  did  they  not  love  liberty  in 
the  British  Isles  as  well  as  in  the  West  Indies? 

But,  thenceforth,  the  colonies  acquired  preserved  the  Spanish,  Dutch,  or 
French  institutions  by  which  they  were  ruled,  and  were  considered  as  depend 
ing  directly  on  the  crown. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  317 

• 

slave  colonies.  We  will  cite,  in  order  to  study  them  by  them 
selves  alone,  the  colonies  which  held  slaves  before  1834. 

They  were  nineteen  in  number :  —  Antigua,  Barbadoes, 
Montserrat,  Nevis,  St.  Christopher,  Tortola,  Anguilla,  Ba 
hama,  and  the  Bermudas,  colonies  of  English  origin  ; 

Dominica,  Grenada,  St.  Lucia,  St.  Vincent,  Tobago,  and 
Mauritius,  colonies  conquered  from  France  ; 

Jamaica,  Trinidad,  and  Honduras,  conquered  from  Spain  ; 

Guiana  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  conquered  from 
Holland. 

Thirteen*  were  chartered  colonies  ;  six,  f  colonies  of  the 
Crown. 

All  of  these  colonies  possessed,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  nearly  800,000  slaves,  J  owned  by  less  than  150,000 
whites,  who  annually  increased  the  slave  population  by 
the  horrors  of  the  slave-trade. 

As  is  well  known,  the  slave-trade  was  attacked  and 
abolished  before  slavery. 

*  Antigua,  Bahama,  Barbadoes,  the  Bermudas,  Dominica,  Grenada,  Jamaica, 
Montserrat,  Nevis,  St.  Christopher,  St.  Vincent,  Tobago,  and  the  Virgin  Islands, 

t  Trinidad,  the  Cape,  Guiana,  Honduras,  Mauritius,  and  St.  Lucia. 

t  Jamaica        .                311,070 

Trinidad 20,757 

Tobago 11,589 

Grenada 23,640 

St.  Vincent 22,266 

Barbadoes 83,150 

St.  Lucia 13,291 

Dominica 14,175 

Antigua •  29,121 

Nevis .        .  8,815 

Montserrat     .        .        .        .'       ..      ...  6,401 

St.  Christopher .        .        *        .....    ..        .        .  19,780 

•  Tortola.        .        .V       ..."..  5,135 
Bahama      .        ....        .        .        .  10,086 

The  Bermudas      .        .        .        .        .        .-        .  4,026 

•  Guiana .        -  82,824  J> 

Honduras       .        .        .        .....        1,901 

•  The  Cape ."•      .        •  35,750 

Mauritius -  .        •  66,613 

Total  •  "      .        770,390 


318  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

• 

Nevertheless,  the  immortal  authors  of  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade  did  not  for  a  moment  abandon  the  thought 
of  instigating  the  abolition  of  slavery.  This  was  announced 
by  Wilberforce  in  1792.  But  a  double  motive  restrained 
them. 

They  hoped  that,  in  default  of  fresh  supplies,  slavery 
would  become  extinct,  as  a  brook  dries  up  when  its 
source  is  cut  off.  They  thought  that  it  was  wise  to  arrive 
at  liberty  step  by  step,  by  gradual  ameliorations,  and  "  that 
this  celestial  plant  could  only  spring  up  on  a  soil  fitted  to 
receive  it.* 

Such  was  for  twenty  years  the  dominant  opinion  ;  no 
project  prevailed  against  it,  and  so  great  was  still  the  as 
cendency  of  these  ideas,  that,  when  Buxton,  in  his  own 
name  and  that  of  Wilberforce,  formally  proposed  abolition 
in  Parliament,  May  15,  1823,  he  dared  only  speak  of  gradual 
abolition,  and  Mr.  Canning,  adhering  in  behalf  of  the  gov 
ernment  to  this  proposition,  amended  it  by  a  celebrated 
formula,  in  which  the  word  freedom  is  not  pronounced,  and 
the  word  abolition  is  replaced  by  the  promise  of  decisive 
and  effectual  measures  to  ameliorate  the  condition,  of  the  slave 
population.-^  It  was  on  the  15th  of  May,  1823,  that  the 
proposition  of  Mr.  Buxton  was  adopted  ;  it  was  on  the  15th 
of  May,  1833,  that  Lord  Stanley,  ten  years  after  to  a  day, 
introduced  into  Parliament  the  Act  of  Emancipation. 

In  the  interval,  great  efforts  and  a  curious  experience 
took  place. 

On  the  9th  of  July,  1823,  Lord  Bathurst,  Secretary  of 
State  of  the  Colonies,  addressed  a  circular  to  the  Gover 
nors,  commanding  them  to  submit  definite  ameliorations  to 
the  legislatures,  a  sort  of  preparatory  programme  of  the 
measures  adapted  to  bring  about  freedom,  of  which  the  fol 
lowing  is  a  summary  :  — 

*  Wilberforce,  session  of  April  2, 1792. 

t  Abstract  of  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  Colonies.  Royal  Printing  House- 
1840,  Tom.  I.  p.  4. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  319 

1.  Before  all,  to  strengthen  and  diffuse  religion,  — "  the 
source  of  all  true  amelioration  " ;  the  government  should 
make  free  those  whom  religion  has  made  men.  They  should 
contribute  to  the  support  of  a  more  numerous  clergy  as  soon 
as  the  legislature  should  have  rendered  the  action  of  this 
clergy  possible  by  the  abolition  of  Sunday  markets,  and 
the  concession  to  the  slave  of  another  day  instead  of  Sun 
day,  in  which  to  cultivate  their  own  fields. 
/  2.  To  accord  to  slaves  the  right  to  testify  in  court,  to  see 
in  their  word  conscientiousness  and  reason,  as  soon  as  re 
ligion  should  have  taught  these  regenerated  beings  to  re 
spect  the  name  of  God.  To  admit  no  slave  to  testify  except 
those  provided  with  a  certificate  of  piety  from  the  ecclesi 
astic  of  his  plantation  or  parish  ;  in  case  of  doubt,  the  pre 
sumption  to  be  in  favor  of  freedom. 

/  3.  To  encourage  marriages,  especially  among  slaves  of 
the  same  plantation,  as  soon  as  religion  should  have  re 
vealed  to  the  slaves  the  dignity  and  duty  of  father,  mother, 
and  spouse  ;  to  establish  the  Christian  family,  the  true  basis 
of  society,  the  corner-stone  of  civilization  and  crowning 
work  of  Christianity. 

'  4.  To  encourage  emancipation  ;  to  abolish  the  taxes  by 
which  it  was  fettered  ;  to  take  measures  that  infants  and  the 
infirm  should  not  be  abandoned,  under  pretext  of  emancipat 
ing  them  ;  that  the  act,  once  registered,  should  not  be  lost ; 
that  the  capacity  of  transacting  business  should  not  be  de 
nied  the  slave  ;  and  lastly,  that  the  rights  of  thirds  estab 
lished  on  his  person  should  be  purged,  and  should  not  indefi 
nitely  hold  his  liberty  in  suspense  and  his  security  in  peril. 

5.  Without  absolutely  forbidding  the  sale  of  slaves  in 
payment  of  their  masters'  debts,  (for  the  greater  part  of  the 
slaves  mortgaged  and  substituted  belonged  less  to  the  mas 
ters  than  to  their  creditors,)  not  to  sell  the  slaves  in  gen 
eral  without  the  land  ;  to  accord  sequestration  rather  than 
sale ;  to  sell  everything,  slaves,  implements,  and  plarita- 


320 


THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 


tions,  as  far  as  possible  without  division  ;  to  prohibit  the 
sale  of  the  husband  without  the  wife,  or  the  mother  without 
the  children  under  fourteen  ;  and  to  appoint  commissioners 
or  protectors  for  husbands,  wives,  and  children  reputed  such, 
in  consideration  of  the  custom  of  non-marriage  among  the 
slaves,  to  watch  over  these  provisions. 

6.  To  lessen  punishment,  to  exempt  women  from  the 
lash,  to  abolish  the  use  of  the  whip  as  a  stimulus  to  field 
labor,  to  punish  no  offence  until  the  next  day,  and  then  in 
the  presence  of  the  one  by  whom  the  punishment  was  or 
dered,  and  of  a  free  person  to  keep  a  register  of  the  cause, 
the  time,  and  the  degree  of  the  punishment,  and  to  inflict 
penalties  on  masters  who  abused  it. 

Y.  To  secure  to  the  slaves  the  enjoyment  of  such  prop 
erty  as  it  was  eligible  for  them  to  possess  ;  to  this  end,  to 
establish  savings  banks,  and  permit  the  depositor  to  declare 
to  whom  the  deposit  should  revert  after  himself. 

Curious  provisions,  still  timid,  but  wise  and  well  fitted  to 
demonstrate,  on  the  one  hand,  how  freedom  proceeds  from 
religion,  and  is  based  on  right ;  on  the  other,  how  all  abuses 
are  born  inevitably  of  slavery.  The  statesman  who  wrote 
this  page  of  philosophy,  as  well  as  policy,  seems  a  physician 
treating  at  once  of  the  diseases  and  remedies  of  human 
nature,  —  deep-seated  diseases,  simple  remedies,  and  with 
out  equivalent. 

Not  a  colony  had  anticipated  these  counsels ;  not  a  colony 
accepted  them  pacifically  or  fully.  The  chartered  colonies 
declared  the  intervention  of  government  unconstitutional  ; 
the  colonies  of  the  crown  offered  resistance.  The  hopes  of 
the  slaves  were  raised  as  far  as  the  resistance  of  the  mas 
ters  ;  there  were  insurrections,  incendiarisms,  and  capital 
executions,  especially  at  Guiana  (1823)  and  Jamaica  (1824). 
After  seven  years,  eight  *  colonies  had  adopted  none  of 

*  Honduras,  Mauritius,  Antigua,  the  Bermudas,  Montserrat,  Nevis,  St.  Chris 
topher,  and  the  Virgin  Islands. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  321 

the  reforms  prescribed.  The  twelve  others  had  absolutely 
refused  the  measures  relative  to  religious  instruction  and 
the  amelioration  of  justice  ;  three*  only  had  abolished  the 
Sunday  markets.  All  the  chartered  colonies  refused  the 
appointment  of  protectors,  the  concession  of  one  day  in 
the  week  to  the  slaves,  the  savings  banks,  the  restrictions 
on  sales,  and  the  modification  of  punishment.  Except  at 
Trinidad  and  St.  Lucia,  no  important  amelioration  was 
accepted,  and  those  which  were  adopted  remained  wellnigh 
without  effect. 

It  was  really  necessary  that  the  government  should  exact 
what  it  must  despair  of  otherwise  obtaining.  This  duty 
was  fulfilled.  The  g-overnment  commenced  by  setting  the 
example.  A  circular  from  Lord  Goodrich,  March  12,  1831, 
informed  the  colonies  that  all  the  slaves  of  the  crown  do 
mains  were  free. 

Eight  months  after,  the  king,  by  an  Order  in  Council  dated  I 
November  2,  1831,  prescribed  and  elaborated  all  the  meas-  / 
ures  enunciated  in  the  circular  of  1823. 

Officers,  under  the  name  of  protectors  or  assistant  pro 
tectors  of  slaves,  were  instituted  in  all  the  colonies  (Arts. 
1-26),  paid  by  the  crown,  and  invested  with  extended 
authority ;  they  were  to  be  in  no  wise  interested  in  slave 
property. 

Sunday  markets  were  declared  illegal  (Arts.  21-31), 
and  labor  on  Sunday  was  punished  (Arts.  31-35).  It 
was  no  longer  permitted  to  use  the  whip  on  the  plan 
tations  to  stimulate  the  slaves  like  horses,  to  whip  a 
woman,  or  to  give  a  man  more  than  fifteen  lashes  on  the 
spot  without  witnesses,  or  on  unhealed  wounds ;  and  pun 
ishments  were  to  be  recorded  (Arts.  36-53). 

Marriage  between  slaves  was  permitted  and  regulated 
(Arts.  54-59).  The  slave  was  declared  eligible  to  be 

*  The  Cape,  Barbadoes,  and  Tobago.  Published  Statement  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy. 

14*  u 


322  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES.- 

cited  in  court,  and  to  hold  all  property,  except  boats,  in 
struments  of  flight,  arms  and  ammunition,  instruments  of 
insurrection,  or  other  slaves,  through  shameful  forgetfuluess 
of  his  own  hopes  (Arts.  60-62). 

Courts  of  petition  were  instituted  for  slaves,  —  a  spe 
cial,  summary,  inexpensive,  and  decisive  mode  of  justice 
(Art.  63). 

The  separation  of  families  by  sale  or  bequest  was  pro 
hibited  (Arts.  66-69).  Emancipation  was  rendered  easy, 
and  exempted  from  taxation,  and  its  renunciation  made  im 
possible  (Arts.  70,  71).  The  slaves  were  empowered  to 
ransom  themselves  (Arts.  74-85).*  The  legal  presumption 
in  favor  of  freedom  was  sanctioned  (Art.  86),  and  the  tes 
timony  of  slaves  admitted  in  law  (Art.  87).  Minute  pro 
visions  regulated  the  food,  maintenance,  clothing,  lodging, 
bedding,  medical  attendance,  and  religious  liberty  due 
slaves  from  masters,  and  the  duration  of  labor  due  masters 
from  slaves  (Arts.  88-104).  Severe  penalties  (Arts.  105- 
110)  served  as  sanctions  to  these  prescriptions,  placed 
under  the  guard  of  the  protectors  and  judges  (Arts.  105- 
116),  bound  in  their  turn  to  make  frequent  reports  to  the 
Governors,  who  were  not  to  order  the  payment  of  their  sal 
aries  until  after  having  received  their  reports  (Art.  118), 
and  who  were,  moreover,  themselves  bound  to  the  crown 
by  the  obligation  to  submit  their  ordinances  to  its  approba 
tion  (Art.  119),  and  bore  a  responsibility  equal  to  their 
authority. 

The  order  of  1831  aroused  the  most  violent  opposition. 
In  all  the  colonies  the  masters  protested  against  this  viola 
tion  of  their  property. 

They  were  right  indeed  ! 

The  law  prescribed  to  the  colonist  at  what  hour  his  prop 
erty  should  rise  and  go  to  rest ;  what  it  should  receive  a 
week,  —  that  with  twenty-one  pints  of  flour,  or  fifty-six  bana 
nas,  seven  herring  or  shad,  it  should  have  a  hat  of  bark, 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION. 

straw,  or  leaves,  a  cloth  jacket,  two  shirts,  two  pairs  of 
trousers,  or  two  Osnabruck  skirts  ;  that  it  should  also  have 
a  woollen  blanket,  two  pairs  of  shoes,  a  knife  or0  scissors, 
razors,  a  stove,  and  an  iron  pot  (Order,  Art.  97).  The 
law  added,  that  .the  colonist  could  no  longer  sell  this  prop 
erty  at  his  will,  or  lash  it  at  his  caprice,  or  hinder  it  from 
marrying  or  emancipating  itself.  It  was  clear  that  this 
property  was  no  longer  a  chattel,  nor  even  an  animal,  but 
a  person,  a  human  being,  a  soul.  What  an  outrage  on  • 
property ! 

Yes,  if  the  master  had  a  right,  the  law  was  abusive  ;  but 
if  the  master's  right  were  no  right,  the  law  was  just,  it 
failed  to  be  logical ;  it  was  necessary  to  proclaim  liberty, 
this  was  done. 

The  policy  of  the  government  led  to  it,  the  opposition  of 
the  colonists  compelled  it. 

A  committee  of  inquiry,  appointed  by  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  to  investigate  the  means  for  attaining  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  made  a  report,  August  ll,  1832,  which  called 
for  the  most  urgent  attention  of  legislation.  The  gov 
ernment,  placed  between  the  excited  hopes  of  the  slaves, 
and  the  obstinate  resistance  of  the  colonies,  resolved  to 
proclaim  a  general  emancipation,  with  the  double  condition 
of  an  indemnity  and  an  apprenticeship.  Lord  Stanhope, 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies,  introduced  this 
memorable  measure,  May  14,  1833. 

On  the  20th  of  May  it  announc.ed  this  determination  to 
the  colonial  governments  by  a  despatch  containing  these 
words  :  — 

"  The  government  regrets  taking  the  initiative  in  this' 
measure.  But  it  has  been  forced  to  yield  in  this  respect  to 
the  declared  wish  of  public  opinion,  after  having  lost  a|l 
hope  of  seeing  itself  anticipated  and  seconded  by  eoloniaSI 
legislation.  The  security  of  the  colonies,  moreover,  per-^ 
mits  no  longer  hesitation/7 


324  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

The  act  was  passed  June  12,  1833,  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  June  25  by  the  House  of  Lords,  and  was 
promulgated,  with  the  sanction  of  the  crown,  August  28, 
1833. 

This  noble  law,  which  delivered  a  great  nation  from  the 
opprobrium  of  a  crime,  and  800,000  men  from  the  weight 
of  servitude,  is  composed  of  sixty-six  articles. 

Article  3  declares  all  slaves  instantly  free  who  shall  be 
transported  upon  English  soil. 

Articles  1  and  2  transform,  from  August  1,  1834,  all 
slaves  inhabiting  the  soil  of  the  colonies  into  apprenticed 
laborers,  bound  to  labor  for  the  benefit  of  their  former 
masters. 

The  apprenticeship  was  to  last :  — 

1.  For  rural  apprentices  attached  to  the  soil,  that  is,  habit 
ually  employed  on  the  plantations  of  their  masters,  until 
August  1,  1840.     (Arts.  4  and  5.) 

2.  For  rural  apprentices  not  attached  to  the  soil,  that  is,  ha 
bitually   employed    on   plantations   not  belonging  to  their 
masters,  until  the  same  date.     (Arts.  4  and  5.) 

3.  For  other  than  rural  apprenticed  laborers,  until  Au 
gust  1,   1838   (Art.  6)  ;  these  delays  were  prolonged  four 
months  for  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  six  months  for  the 
Isle  of  Mauritius.     (Art.  65.) 

The  apprentice  might  be  liberated  before  the  expiration 
of  these  dates  (Art.  7),  or  might  redeem  himself  (Art.  8). 
•\  But  emancipation  did  not  release  the  master  from  his  duties 
vtowards  the  aged  and  infirm.     The  law  also  protected  chil 
dren,  by  charging  the  justices  of  the  peace  to  prepare  for 
them  special  contracts  of  apprenticeship.     (Art.  13.) 

In  this  still  incomplete  state  of  freedom,  the  apprentice 
was  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  special  justices  of 
the  peace  (Arts.  14,  15,  18,  19).  It  was  forbidden  to  sepa 
rate  families  (Art.  10),  to  defraud  liberty  by  transporting 
the  apprentice  from  the  colony  to  which  he  belonged  (Art. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  325 

9),  and  to  degrade  the  dignity  of  manhood  in  him  by  the 
punishment  of  the  lash  (Art.  17).  The  observation  of 
Sunday,  the  grant  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  or  of  a  spot 
of  ground  on  which  to  raise  them,  was  secured  to  the 
former  slave  (Arts.  21,  11).  The  classification  of  appren 
tices,  the  forms  and  conditions  of  redemption  the  regula 
tions  necessary  to  public  tranquillity,  the  suppression  of 
vagrancy,  the  allowance  of  lodging,  clothing,  food,  and 
medical  care,  the  appointment  of  the  hours  of  labor  and 
repose,  in  a  word,  all  the  measures  fitted  to  secure  the  exe 
cution  of  the  law  and  contracts,  were  intrusted  to  the  local 
legislatures  or  authorities  (Arts.  16,  23). 

To  facilitate  these  measures,  the  plan  of  an  Order  in 
Council,  rendered  October  19,  1833,  and  divided  into  twelve 
chapters,  was  addressed  to  the  colonies,  a  sort  of  regulation 
of  public  administration  was  proposed  as  a  model. 

These  authorities  remained  free  to  exclude  from  the  rank 
of  citizens  those  who  had  just  been  admitted  to  the  rank  of 
men  ;  they  could  exempt  them  from  certain  military  services, 
or  declare  them  ineligible  to  the  enjoyment  of  certain  polit 
ical  franchises  (Art.  22).  The  law  secured  to  the  former 
masters,  at  once  as  a  compensation  for  the  services  of  which 
they  were  about  to  be  deprived  and  a  subsidy  to  labor,  an 
indemnity  of  £20,000,000,  to  be  apportioned  by  commit 
tees  of  arbiters,  appointed  by  the  crown,  among  the  nine 
teen  slave  colonies,  islands,  and  lands  depending  thereon, 
according  to  the  number  of  slaves  enumerated  in  conformity 
with  the  terms  of  Statute  59  George  III.,  and  to  the  average 
sale  price  computed  during  the  eight  years  preceding  1834 
i Arts.  24-60).* 

The  Indies,  Ceylon,  and  St.  Helena  were  excepted  from 


*  Number  of  slaves  freed       .      /.    ,-/..-;  •        •      770,390 
Average  value  from  1822  to  1830    .        .        .         £  56     8s. 
Average  rate  of  indemnity  per  head  .        .        .    £  25  15s. 
Total  amount  of  indemnity    .        .        .     £19,950,066    Os. 


826  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

the  application  of  the  law,  which,  on  the  contrary,  was  de 
clared  applicable  at  the  colony  of  Honduras  as  soon  as  the 
registration  of  the  slaves  should  have  been  accomplished 
there  (Art.  62). 

Such  was  the  celebrated  law  which  devoted  £20,000,000 
to  the  ransom  of  800,000  men. 

There  was  reason  to  fear  tha-t  too  much  prudence  had  ren 
dered  it  imprudent.  It  loosened  knots  without  untying 
them.  It  inflamed  all  passions  and  contented  none.  The 
right  of  the  master  was  recognized  and  broken  ;  more  ex 
tended  duties  and  narrow  limits  were  imposed  on  its  enjoy 
ment  ;  interested  in  order,  he  was  almost  as  much  so  in  the 
disorder  that  would  ensue  to  justify  his  sombre  predictions 
arid  make  liberty  distrusted.  The  slave  received  the  name 
of  liberty  without  its  use,  —  a  postponement  very  short  to 
him  who  enjoys,  very  long  to  him  who  suffers,  rendered  un 
certain  this  hope,  which  a  reaction  easily  to  be  feared  might 
yet  retard  or  suddenly  destroy,  —  he  saw  the  shore  without 
touching  it.  A  perilous  transition,  which  exposed  the  colo 
nies  to  disorder,  property  to  ruin,  liberty  to  a  costly  and 
bloody  check  ! 

The  wisdom  and  firmness  of  the  Governors,  the  influence 
of  religion  on  the  negroes,  and  the  intelligent  resignation 
of  the  masters,  secured,  on  the  contrary,  a  marvellous 
.success. 

I"  Wherever  the  planters  wish  the  thing  to  succeed,  it  is 
successful,"  wrote  the  Governor  of  Jamaica,  September  19, 
1835.  To  this  Governor,  the  Marquis  of  Sligo,  his  prede 
cessor,  Lord  Mul grave,  and  his  successor,  Sir  Lionel  Smith, 
reverts  the  honor  of  having  directed  so  difficult  a  work  in 
this  beautiful  colony,  which  represents  by  itself  alone  one 
half  of  the  revenues  of  the  British  colonies,  and  contained 
nearly  half  the  slaves  possessed  by  English  hands  ;  35,000 
whites  being  found  face  to  face  with  322,421  slaves  on  a 
territory  of  750  square  leagues.  . 


HISTOKY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  327 

At  Antigua  and  its  dependencies  —  Montserrat,  Barba- 
does,  St.  Christopher,  Nevis,  Anguilla,  the  Virgin  Islands, 
and  Dominica  —  the  clergy  and  missionaries,  consulted  by 
the  Governor,  Sir  Evan  Murray  MacGregor,  declared  that 
the  moral  and  religious  instruction  of  the  slaves  was  suffi 
ciently  advanced  to  entitle  them  to  an  immediate  liberation, 
which  was  pronounced  June  4,  1833,  by  the  counsel  of  the 
Assembly.* 

At  Guiana,  despite  the  extent  of  territory  and  the  neigh 
borhood  of  more  than  10,000  refugees  in  the  interior,  order 
reigned,  labor  was  maintained,  production  increased,  schools 
multiplied,  a  few  disturbances  were  repressed  without  shed 
ding  blood,  thanks  to  the  zeal,  firmness,  and  kindness  of 
the  Governor,  Sir  J.  Carmichael  Smyth,  whose  death,  oc 
curring  March  4,  1838,  was  mourned  as  a  public  calamity. 

At  Mauritius,  where  the  act  of  1833  was  not  carried  into 
effect  until  1835,  the  consequences  were  somewhat  more 
distressing,  but  the  facility  of  procuring  Indians  sustained 
production.  The  government  refused  to  authorize  the  im 
portation  of  hired  laborers  from  the  coast  of  Africa  and 
Madagascar,  for  fear  of  reviving  the  slave-trade,  but  encour 
aged  the  measures  taken  by  the  Governor,  Sir  William 
Nicolay,  to  attract  the  Coolies  thither ;  and,  at  the  close  of 
183T,  the  island  already  contained  8,690  immigrants. 

We  breathe  freely,  and  thank  God,  when,  after  having 
gone  through  the  immense  collection  of  despatches,  circu 
lars,  orders,  and  decisions  of  the  crown,  which  put  into 
execution,  with  as  much  effect  as  intelligence,  the  act  of 
1833,  we  open  a  despatch  of  Lord  Glenelg,  dated  November 
6,  1838, f  which,  nearly  five  years  after  the  beginning  of  the 
apprenticeship,  thus  sums  up  its  effects  :  — 

"Hitherto,  the  results  of  the  great  experiment  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery  have  justified  the  most  ardent  hopes 

*  Abstract  IV.  Part  III.  p.  258. 

t  Abstract  I.  Part  I.  p.  63;  and  Part  II.  entire. 


328  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

of  the  authors  and  advocates  of  this  measure.  On  examin 
ing  attentively  the  abuses  which  have  grown  out  of  its 
execution,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  should  be  attributed,  in 
great  part,  to  the  ancient  colonial  system.  No  one  who  had 
reflected  on  human  nature  and  the  history  of  slavery  could 
have  expected  such  a  reform  to  be  wrought  without  incon 
veniences.  I  esteem  myself  happy,  therefore,  in  being  able 
to  affirm,  that,  in  this  short  lapse  of  time,  a  progress  has 
been  effected  in  the  social  condition  which  will  add  to  the 
happiness  of  humanity,  and  of  which  history  has  never 
offered  a  greater  example.  The  distinguishing  feature 
above  all  of  this  progress  is,  that  it  has  been  accomplished 
without  the  smallest  disturbance,  without  the  slightest  com 
motion,  without  the  overthrow  of  any  social  institution,  or 
the  least  weakening  of  sovereign  authority.  On  the  con 
trary,  greater  respect  has  surrounded  laws  which  offered  a 
more  equal  protection  to  the  rights  of  all  classes  of  society. 
With  the  feeling  of  growing  security,  the  value  of  property 
has  increased  to  such  a  degree  that  there  is  reason  to  hope 
that  the  final  crisis  which  is  now  so  near  will  be  effected 
without  the  disturbance  of  good  order.'7 

Lord  Glenelg  proceeded  to  indicate  to  the  Governors  the 
inquiries  and  precautions  by  which  they  should  pave  the 
way  for  the  moment  of  definitive  emancipation,  —  a  moment 
which  he  awaited  with  visible  anxiety. 

In  fact,  by  an  apparent  contradiction  which  will  only 
surprise  a  superficial  mind,  the  nearer  the  denouement  ap 
proached,  the  more  formidable  it  seemed,  despite  the  admi 
rable  tranquillity  which  had  followed  the  act  of  1833. 

This  act  had  divided  the  slaves  into  three  classes,  and 
fixed  distinctive  dates  for  the  liberation  of  the  first  two  and 
the  third ;  a  difference  based  on  slight  motives,  and  leav 
ing  room  for  practical  difficulties  and  numerous  frauds. 
It  had  abandoned  numberless  details  to  local  regulations  ; 
now  life  is  made  up  of  details,  through  which  it  is  materi- 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  329 

ally  happy  or  unhappy,  and  under  the  shelter  of  which 
abuses,  ill-will,  dissimilation,  and  rancors  take  refuge. 
Either  the  regulations  were  incomplete,  or  the  masters 
failed  in  their  observance,  or  such  failures  were  not  re 
pressed,  so  that  the  slaves  were  in  many  places  maltreated 
or  mutinous.  In  proportion  as  the  moment  of  freedom 
approached,  some  broke  loose  prematurely  from  their  du 
ties,  others  aspired  prematurely  to  their  rights.  Patience 
long  delayed  is  easier  than  patience  whose  end  is  approach 
ing  ;  it  is  at  the  last  moment  that  one  grows  weary  of 
waiting. 

M.  de  Tocqueville  says  that  the  very  prosperity  of  the 
reign  of  Louis  XVI.  hastened  the  Revolution.* 

"  It  is  said  that  the  French  found  their  position  the  more 
insupportable,  the  better  it  became It  often  hap 
pens  that  a  people  which  has  endured  the  most  oppressive 
laws  without  complaint,  and  as  if  it  did  not  feel  them, 
throws  them  off  violently  the  instant  the  burden  is  light 
ened,  and  experience  teaches  that  the  most  danger 
ous  moment  to  a  bad  government  is  usually  that  in  which 
it  begins  to  amend.  The  evil  which  one  suffers  patiently, 
as  inevitable,  seems  insupportable  as  soon  as  he.  conceives 
the  idea  of  escaping  it.  All  that  is  then  taken  from  abuses 
seems  to  uncover  what  remains,  and  render  the  feeling  of 
it  more  poignant ;  the  evil  has  become  less,  it  is  true,  but 
the  sensibility  is  keener." 

The  colonies  then  presented  this  spectacle. 

On  the  other  hand,  public  opinion  in  the  mother  country 
availed  itself  sometimes  of  the  abuses,  at  others  of  the 
good  effects  of  the  apprenticeship,  to  demand  that  it  should 
be  abridged,  and  that  freedom  should  be  proclaimed  defin 
itively  and  without  distinction,  from  August  1,  1838.  In 
numerable  petitions  uttered  this  prayer  ;  one,  addressed  to 
the  queen,  was  signed  by  600,000  names.  From  the  halls 

*  L'Anden  Regime  et  la  Revolution,  Chap.  XVI.  p.  269. 


330  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

of  meetings,  public  opinion  crossed  the  threshold  of  Par 
liament,  and  petitions  became  motions. 

In  the  Upper  House,  on  the  20th  of  February,  1838,  Lord 
Brougham  proposed  the  final  suppression  of  slavery  on  the 
ensuing  1st  of  August. 

Analogous  motions  were  made  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
by  Sir  G.  Strickland,  Mr.  James  Steward,  and  Sir  Eardley 
Wilmot.  In  1836,  Mr.  Buxton  had  obtained  the  appoint 
ment  of  a  committee  of  inquiry.*  Important  discussions 
followed  the  report,  and  the  most  radical  motions.  "  It 
would  be  easier  to  turn  back  the  Thames  in  its  course/' 
exclaimed  O'Connell,  "  than  to  keep  the  negroes  in  slavery 
against  the  unanimous  wish  of  the  English  people."  The 
cabinet  of  Lord  Melbourne,  supported  in  its  hesitation  by 
Lord  Wellington,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  Mr.  Gladstone, 
sustained  the  system  of  apprenticeship  because  it  had  suc 
ceeded,  and  because  it  constituted  a  sort  of  pledge  to  the 
colonists.  It  preferred,  moreover,  to  leave  to  the  local 
legislatures  the  merit  and  popularity  of  emancipation. 
But,  admitting  the  abuses  and  insufficiency  of  the  act  of 
1833,  it  proposed  a  modifying  act,  which  regulated  all 
which  that  of  1833  had  omitted  or  abandoned,  abrogated 
the  measures  injudiciously  taken  by  the  colonial  powers, 
and  interposed  the  will  of  Parliament  and  the  crown  with 
greater  authority  in  all  the  relations  between  masters  and 
apprentices.  This  act  was  dated  April  11,  1838. 

Upon  its  promulgation,  the  colonial  legislatures  and  gov 
ernment  councils  hesitated  no  longer  to  declare  in  favor  of 
immediate  emancipation,  already  accepted  at  Antigua. 

It  was  proclaimed  at  Jamaica,  Trinidad,  Dominica,  Bar- 
badoes,  St.  Lucia,  and  Guiana,  in  June,  July,  and  August, 
1838  ;  and  at  Mauritius,  March  11,  1839. f 

*  Composed  of  Messrs.  Buxton,  Sir  George  Grey,  O'Connel],  Gladstone, 
Baines,  Sir  Stratford  Canning,  Labouchere,  Andrew,  Johnston,  Thornly,  Patrick 
Stewart,  Charles  Lushington,  Oswald,  Sir  James  Graham,  Lord  Sandon,  and 
Lord  Henrick.  See  Report  of  August  13,  1886.  Abstract  III.  p  3. 

t  Abstract  of  the  Abolition,  etc.,  II.  p.  16. 


HISTORY  OF  EMANCIPATION.  331 

• 

The  act  of  August  28,  1833,  which  promised  freedom  after 
an  apprenticeship  destined  to  last  until  1840,  was  there 
fore  anticipated  ;  prudence  itself  counselled  that  patience 
should  not  be  so  far  prolonged. 

The  partisans  of  a  gradual  preparation  for  emancipation 
may  draw  an  argument  from  the  manner  in  which  the  pe 
riod  of  apprenticeship  transpired.  In  fact,  from  the  state 
ments  which  fill  the  preceding  pages,  and  the  despatch  of 
Lord  Glenelg,  which  we  have  cited,  it  results  :  — 

1.  That  the  transition  of  the  negroes  from  slavery  to  free 
dom  was  effected  without  commotion  ; 

2.  That,  from  1834  to  1838,  the  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 
null  or  very  nearly  so  with  respect  to  the  person,  continually 
diminished  with  respect  to  property  ; 

3.  That  production,  less  on  certain  points,  equal  or  supe 
rior  on  certain  others,  was  maintained  in  general  during  the 
four  years  of  apprenticeship. 

But  the  end  of  the  apprenticeship  was  abrupt,  and  those 
who  have  no  fears  of  an  immediate  solution  of  the  question 
of  slavery  may  in  their  turn  draw  an  argument  from  this 
unexpected  cessation  ;  for  it  has  been  followed  by  a  no  less 
satisfactory  success,  as  we  are  about  to  see.  '• 

It  is  difficult,  and  would  be  useless,  to  enter  into  the  de-  / 
tailed  history   of  each    of  the    nineteen    slave   colonies   of 
England.     Documents   are  superabundant.     From   1834   to 
1840   only,  the  English  government  published  fifteen  folio 
volumes  containing  7,256  pages.     Under  the  impulse  of  the_ 
Commission  presided   over  by   M.  de  Broglie,  the  French 
government,  from  1840  to  1843,  followed  this  great  experi 
ment  with  praiseworthy  attention,  and  published  reports, 
translations,  and  official  documents  of  the  highest  interest.* 

*  See  Abstract  of  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  English  Colonies,  pub 
lished  by  order  of  Admiral  Duperre1,  5  vols.,  1841,  and  especially  in  the  4th  and 
5th  volumes;  the  Reports  of  Procureur- General  Bernard  and  Captain  Layrle  on 
Jamaica  (1834-1842),  Barbadoes  (1834-1841),  St.  Lucia,  St.  Vincent,  Granada, 
and  St.  Christopher  (1838-1840),  Antigua  (1836-1841);  of  MM.  Aubert,  Ar- 


332  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

% 

We  cannot  sufficiently  thank  these  two  governments  for 
having  given  so  much  importance  to  this  genesis  of  the  ele 
vation  to  liberty  of  a  part  of  the  human  family. 

To  guide  ourselves  without  being  lost  in  this  forest  of 
documents,  but  one  means  will  avail ;  namely,  to  open  bold 
ly  two  or  three  broad  roads,  and  to  plant  at  the  entrance, 
as  so  many  guide-boards,  the  two  or  three  principal  ques 
tions  which  overlook  the  whole  history,  then  to  go  on  our 
way  gathering  up  all  the  facts,  the  aggregate  of  which  will 
be  the  answer  to  the  questions  propounded. 

What  has  been  the  influence  of  emancipation  on  the  con 
dition  of  the  former  slaves  ? 

What  has  been  the  influence  of  emancipation  on  the  pro 
duction,  labor,  and  prosperity  of  the  colonies  ? 

All  the  documents  may  be  classed,  with  a  few  subdivis 
ions,  under  these  two  capital  heads. 

So  long  a  study  would  be  wearisome,  if  it  had  not  a  vast 
compensation  in  store.  It  is  with  the  affranchisement  of  a 
slave  as  with  the  education  of  a  child  ;  nothing  is  more  mo 
notonous  in  detail,  but  when  we  see  that  all  these  petty 
cares  have  made  a  man,  we  feel  no  regret  for  the  fatigue 
which  they  have  caused.  I  do  not  complain  of  the  pains 
which  have  led  me  to  irrefragable  conclusions,  raised,  in 
spite  of  interested  denials  or  objections  drawn  from  partial 
observations,  to  the  height  of  historic  truths.  They  repose 
at  once  on  the  testimony  of  the  most  eminent  and  diverse 
English  statesmen,  and  on  the  authority  of  figures,  impas 
sive  witnesses  which  can  no  more  be  accused  of  sentimen 
tality  than  of  imposture. 

mand,  and  Arnous  on  Trinidad  (1839,  1840);  Vidal  de  Lingendes  and  Guillet 
on  Guiana  (1838,  1839);  and  Dejean  de  la  Batie  on  the  Island  of  Mauritius 
(1838-1840).  See  the  extended  Report,  in  two  volumes,  fol.,  of  M.  Jules  Leche- 
vallier  to  the  Duke  de  Broglie.  Consult,  above  all,  the  documents  so  usefully  in 
serted  in  the  Revue  colonials,  33  vols.,  from  1842  to  I860. 


CHAPTER    II. 

INFLUENCE   OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  FREED   CLASSES. 

AT  the*end  of  1838,  after  five  years'  experience,  Lord 
Glenelg,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  Colonies,  recounted  the 
happy  transition  from  servitude  to  apprenticeship.  The 
same  facts  were  verified  by  the  committee  charged  with 
directing  the  inquiry  of  1836,  and  which  counted  among  its 
members  Mr.  Buxton,  Mr.  O'Connell,  Sir  James  Graham. 
M.  Labouchere,  and  Sir  George  Grey. 

After  three  more  years,  Lord  Stanley,  Secretary  of  State 
of  the  Colonies,  characterizes  in  the  following  terms,  March 
22,  1842,  the  transition  from  apprenticeship  to  full  liberty.* 

"  Upon  the  whole,  the  result  of  the  great  experiment  of 
emancipation,  attempted  upon  the  collective  population  of 
the  West  Indies,  has  surpassed  the  most  lively  hopes  of  even 
the  warmest  friends  of  colonial  prosperity  ;  not  only  has  the 
material  prosperity  of  each  of  the  islands  greatly  increased, 
but,  what  is  still  better,  there  has  been  progress  in  industri 
ous  habits,  improvement  in  the  social  and  religious  system, 
and  development,  among  individuals,  of  those  qualities  of 
the  heart  and  mind  which  are  more  necessary  to  happiness  . 

than   the  material  objects  of  life The  negroes  are 

happy  and  satisfied,  they  give  themselves  to  labor,  they 
have  ameliorated  their  manner  of  living  and  increased  their 
comfort,  and,  while  crimes  have  diminished,  moral  habits\ 
have  become  better.  The  number  of  marriages  has  in 
creased  and,  under  the  influence  of  the  ministers  of  relig 
ion,  instruction  has  been  diffused.  Such  are  the  results  of 

*  Report  of  M.  Lechevallier,  Part  II.  Chap.  XIV.  §  3,  p.  929. 


334  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

emancipation  ;  Us  success  has  been  complete,  as  to  the  princi 
pal  end  of  the  measure." 

The  salient  facts  which  appear,  from  all  inquiries,  are  these  : 
complete  tranquillity  ;  no  vengeance,  no  tumult,  no  incen 
diarism,  no  civil  war  ;  a  prodigious  number  of  marriages  ; 
schools  and  churches  filled  to  overflowing  ;  lastly,  a  grow 
ing  love  of  property. 

This  last  feature  is  worthy  of  remark. 

"The  number  of  negroes  become  freeholders  through  their 
industry  and  economy  amounted,  in  the  whole  island  of  Ja 
maica,  to  2,114,  in  1838  ;  two  years  afterwards,  in  1840, 

they  numbered  7,340.* At  Guiana,  from  150  to  200 

negroes  associate  together  to  buy  estates  worth  150,000, 
250,000,  and  even  400,000  francs.  Considerable  villages  f 
"have  been  formed,  composed  of  pretty  cottages,  with  a  good 
church,  and  occupied  by  numerous  inhabitants,  industrious 
and  well  clad.'7  J 

Lord  Stanley  completed  these  testimonials  concerning  the 
happiness  and  progress  of  the  freedmen  by  another  proof 
drawn  from  the  value  of  the  exportations  of  England  to  the 
colonies. 

During  the  last  six  years  of  slavery  it  was      .         .       69,575,000  fr. 
During  the  apprenticeship  (1835  -  1838)  it  amount 
ed  to  89,450,000 

In  the  first  year  of  freedom  it  attained       .         .  100,061,575 

The  second  year  .         .-        .         .         ...  87,318,350 

On  all  these  points  the  French  testimony  accords  com 
pletely  with  the  English  reports. 

*  The  lots  generally  comprise  two  or  three  acres,  and  sometimes  do  not  ex 
ceed  a  few  fathoms.  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  p.  27.  Ibid.,  p.  830. 

t  On  the  1st  of  January,  1843,  the  negroes  had  built,  in  the  county  of  Berbice 
alone,  1,184  houses  since  emancipation,  and  had  brought  under  cultivation 
nearly  7,000  acres  of  land  purchased  by  them.  Revue  coloniale,  p.  30. 

t  In  the  other  colonies,  —  in  Trinidad,  for  instance,  —  a  host  of  negroes  set 
tled  illegally  as  squatters  on  the  crown  lands,  and  a  proclamation  of  the  Gov 
ernor  was  needed  to  prohibit  this.  Ibid.,  p.  634. 


INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  FREED  CLASSES.  335 

Captain  Layrle  of  the  Navy  wrote  from  Jamaica  :  *  — 

"The  negroes  have  not  abandoned  cultivation,  this  is  a 
fact ;  now  if  by  labor  is  understood  that  which  refers  to 
the  planter,  that  which,  under  the  preceding  system,  prof 
ited  a  handful  of  whites  who  monopolized  it,  less  labor  is 
done,  it  is  true  ;  but  if  the  labor  of  the  negroes  on  their  own 
lands  be  brought  into  the  computation  (for  it  is  notorious 
that  purchases  to  the  value  of  2,500,000  francs  have  been 
made  during  the  past  three  years  by  the  freedmen),  it  is 
found  that  the  diminution  of  labor  is  not  as  considerable 
as  it  first  appeared  ;  only  labor  has  taken  another  direc 
tion." 

To  the  declarations  of  Lord  Stanley  is  added  the  report 
of  the  Committee  of  Inquiry,  the  appointment  of  which 
his  speech  was  designed  to  call  forth.  The  first  conclusion 
of  this  report,  July  25,  1842,  is  as  follows  :f- 

"  The,  religious,  moral,  and  material  amelioration  of  the 
negroes  is  incontestable. 

"The  seven  years  (1842-1848)  which  followed  these  be 
ginnings  witnessed  the  comtinuance  of  the  same  progress, 
but  with  characteristic  phases. 

"At  Jamaica,  to  which  it  is  necessary  to  give  special 
attention,  because  it  was  the  most  important  of  the  slave 
colonies  of  England,  and  because  the  differences  which 
arose  between  the  local  legislature  and  the  mother  country 
rendered  the  work  of  emancipation  more  difficult  there 
than  everywhere  else,  —  at  Jamaica,  the  number  of  free  vil 
lages  settled  by  the  freed  negroes  before  1843,  on  an  extent 
of  at  least  10,000  acres,  was  estimated  at  from  150  to  200. J 
About  10,000  heads  of  families  had  constructed  more  than 
3,000  cabins,  and  expended  in  four  years,  for  the  purchase 


*  Publications  of  the  Marine,  Vol.  V.  p.  21,  and  Broglie,  p.  42. 
f  Report  of  M.  Lechevallier,  Part  II.  p.  992. 

\  Past  and  Present  Condition  of  Jamaica,  by  James  Philippe,  Baptist  Mission 
ary  in  this  colony  for  twenty  years.     1843.     Revue  coloniale,  1844,  II.  p.  489. 


336  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

of  lands  and  erection  of  houses,  more  than  4,000,000  francs. 
About  14,800  marriages  of  freed  persons  were  celebrated 
annually,  or  1  in  29  individuals.  The  negroes  had  imposed 
great  sacrifices  on  themselves  for  the  foundation  of  a  con 
siderable  number  of  chapels  and  schools.  Concubinage  and 
drunkenness  had  become  exceptional,  and  a  journal  of 
Kingston  could  announce,  at  the  beginning  of  1843,  that 
the  prison  had  not  received  a  single  inmate  for  five  days,  a 
fact  which  had  never  occurred  before  since  the  settlement 
of  the  town.  Lord  Elgin,  in  1844,  continues  to  signalize 
the  progress  of  the  population  in  morality,  the  improve 
ments  brought  about  in  the  construction  and  interior 
arrangement  of  the  cabins,  and  the  abandonment  of  super 
stitious  practices.* 

In  a  report  addressed  to  the  political  court  of  Guiana  by 
the  special  magistrates  of  the  different  districts,  in  1843, 
we  read  that  the  number  of  negro  freeholders  .was*  15, 906, 
and  that  they  had  constructed  more  than  3,000  houses. f 
A  law  was  necessary  to  prescribe  the  immediate  sale  of 
lands  occupied  without  sufficient  titles. 

The  freedmen  had  been  accused  of  having  kindled  the 
incendiary  fires  which,  in  1844,  filled  Guiana  with  conster 
nation  ;  an  inquiry  demonstrated  that  they  had,  on  the 
contrary,  contributed  with  all  their  might  to  extinguish 
them.  The  same  was  true  of  the  burning  of  Bridgetown, 
in  Barbadoes.J 

In  June,  1844,  a  negro  insurrection  broke  out  in  Domi 
nica,  but  only  in  a  very  limited  part  of  the  island.  The 
negroes  had  mistaken  the  taking  of  the  census  for  a  re 
turn  to  slavery.  The  insurrection  was  prompted  by  a  few 
malefactors,  and,  it  is  alleged,  a  few  negroes  escaped 
from  the  French  colonies.  After  three  days  order  was 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1844,  III.  p.  192;  1845,  V.  p.  181. 
f  Ibid.,  IV.  p-  265;  1845,  V.  p.  431. 
\  Ibid.,  1845,  VI.  p.  122. 


INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  FREED  CLASSES.   337 

re-established,  and  a  capital  execution  served  as  an  ex 
ample.* 

In  1844  a  portion  of  the  freedmen  had  returned  to  the 
plantations,  and  the  documents  of  this  year  inform  us 
that  at  Jamaica  the  proportion  of  land  under  cultivation 
was  nearly  the  same  as  in  the  time  of  slavery,  and  that 
wages  had  fallen  again  to  Is.  Qd.  per  day  of  nine  hours. 
A  speech  of  the  secretary  of  the  government  at  Gui 
ana  contains  this  saying  :  "In  no  other  part  of  the 
world  are  laborers  better,  wages  lower  (from  1  fr.  25  c. 
to  2  fr.  5  c.),  and  provisions  cheaper,  than  in  English 
Guiana.77 

In  the  other  colonies,  such  as  St.  Lucia,  Barbadoes, 
Trinidad,  St.  Vincent,  and  Antigua,  in  1844,  as  before  this 
epoch,  results  no  less  satisfactory  are  described.  At  Trini 
dad  especially  the  planters  did  not  waste  their  time  in 
vain  recriminations,  or  enter  into  coalitions  to  reduce  wa 
ges  or  increase  the  rent  of  the  cabins  and  gardens ;  they 
directly  created  competition  by  immigration,  and  wages 
at  2  fr.  60  c.,  and  even  5  fr.  20  c.  in  the  time  of  harvest, 
fell  quickly  to  2  fr.  50  c.  and  3  fr.  10  c.  It  is  well  known 
that  at  Antigua  the  production  speedily  exceeded  that  of 
the  years  of  servile  labor. 

In  general,  the  progress  of  civilization  was  in  a  direct 
ratio  to  that  of  religious  instruction.  The  zeal  which  the 
Baptist,  Moravian,  Wesleyan,  and  Anglican  missionaries 
displayed  to  lead  the  negroes  to  freedom,  then  to  virtue,  is 
worthy  of  admiration.  And  where  religion  was  not  encour 
aged,  at  Mauritius,  where  the  English  government  sup 
ported  but  eight,  then  ten  clergymen  for  80,000  souls, 
because  the  population  was  Catholic,  religion  and  morality 
were  seen  to  flourish  among  the  freedmen,  evangelized  by 
heroic  priests  like  the  founder  of  the  mission,  M.  Laval ; 

*   RevitK  colon'uue,  1844,  III.  pp.  420,  552. 
t  7iW.,  1845,  VII.  pp.  80,  90. 

15  T 


338  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES.  • 

but  outside  this  salutary  influence,  the  greater  part  of  the 
negroes  were  devoted,  through  ignorance,  to  every  vice, 
above  all  to  drunkenness.* 

tWhen,  in  1846,  the  government  presented  to  the  Houses 
a  summary  of  the  reports  of  all  the  Governors, f  a  uniform 
picture  was  presented  of  the  excellent  effects  of  freedom 
on  the  conduct  of  the  freed  negroes  at  Jamaica,!  St.  Lu 
cia,  Montserrat,  the  Virgin  Islands,  Nevis,  and  St.  Chris 
topher. 

The  chief  share  in  these  results  was  due  to  these  Governors 
and  to  the  government  itself.  I  take  pleasure  in  citing  the 
admirable  words  of  Lord  Grey.  Scarcely  arrived  at  power, 
he  charged  the  Committee  of  Public  Instruction  in  the  Colo 
nies  to  examine  the  question  of  the  moral  and  industrial 
education  of  the  freed  negroes,  and  by  a  circular  of  Janu 
ary  27,  1847,  §  warmly  recommended  education,  in  order 
that  emancipation  might  be,  he  said,  "the  beginning  of  au 
era  of  enlightened  liberty,  resting  on  a  more  solid  basis 
than  human  laws,  and  inaugurating  the  progress  of  Chris 
tian  virtues  and  public  felicity,"  and  also  instruction, 
"which  makes  the  laborer  intelligent  and  sedate, -creates 
new  needs,  increases  the  action  of  the  body  and  mind, 
and  is  the  best  means  of  bringing  labor  into  connection 
with  the  wants  of  the  planter." 

These  sentiments,  these  efforts,  were  not  the  exclusive 
appanage  of  the  Whig  party  ;  the  ministers  were  changed, 
without  the  devotion  to  this  great  work  experiencing  the 
least  change.  Never  was  more  persevering  ardor  conse 
crated  to  the  service  of  a  juster  cause.  Success  encouraged 
these  noble  actions  by  surpassing  all  hopes  ;  and  when, 
February  7,  1848,  Lord  Bentinck,  shortly  before  his  death, 

*  Annales  de  la  propagation  de  la  foi,  Letter  of  March,  1845 
t  Revue  coloniale,  1846,  X.  p.  425. 

J   See  specially  for  Jamaica  in  1845  and  1846,  the  Reports  of  Lord  Elgin. 
Reme  coloniale,  1847,  p.  316;  and  1847.  XII.  p.  231. 
§  Re-cue  coloniale,  1847,  XII.  p  124. 


INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  FREED  CLASSES.     339 

demanded  of  the  House  of  Commons  the  appointment  of  a 
committee*  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the  colonies, 
Lord  John  Russell,  on  opening  the  discussion,  June  16, 
on  the  conclusions  of  the  report  of  the  committee,  was 
able  to  sum  up  the  history  of  the  results  of  emancipation 
at  this  epoch  in  these  words  :  — 

"The  object  of  the  act  of  1834  was  to  give  liberty  to 
800,000  persons,  and  to  secure  the  independence,  pros 
perity,  and  happiness  of  those  who  were  slaves.  No  one 
denies,  I  think,  that  this  has  been  accomplished.  I  believe 
that  there  is  nowhere  a  happier  class  of  laborers  than  in  the 
West  Indies.  This  satisfactory  condition  is  the  consequence 
of  the  act  of  1834." 

Let  us  interrogate  the  history  of  the  ten  years  following, 
and  we  encounter  the  same  facts  verified  by  the  most  severe 
or  the  most  indulgent  testimony. 

At  Guiana,  a  magnificent  province  of  60,000  square  miles, 
—  traversed  by  the  beautiful  river  Essequibo,  21  miles  broad 
at  the  mouth,  —  and  inhabited  by  more  than  120,000  souls, 
a  colonist,  who  is,  moreover,  very  much  of  a  pessimist, 
writes  :  f  — 

"  The  portion  of  the  native  population  which,  in  other 
countries,  constitutes  the  laboring  class,  is  estimated  at 
70,000  souls.  They  present  the  singular  spectacle,  which 
can  be  contemplated  in  no  other  part  of  the  world,  of  peo 
ple  scarcely  emerged  from  slavery,  yet  already  possessing 
property  in  houses  and  lands  for  which  they  have  paid  more 
than  a  million  pounds  sterling." 

A  French  commission,  charged,  in  1853,  by  the  govern 
ment  of  Martinico,  with  visiting  the  two  islands  of  Barba- 
does  and  Trinidad,  writes  :  J  — 

*  Revue  coloniale,  184.8-1849,  p.  6. 

t  La  Guyane  anglaise  apres  quinze  cms  de  Kberte,  by  a  Proprietor,  Revue  coloni- 
ale,  1854,  XII.  pp.  132,  223. 

J  Report  of  MM.  Northumb-Percin  and  Hayot,  Revue  coloniale,  1854,  XL 
p.  253. 


340  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES 

"  The  aspect  of  Barbadoes  is  dazzling  in  an  agricultural 
and  manufacturing  point  of  view  ;  the  entire  island  is  one 
vast  field  of  sugar-canes  standing  evenly  one  after  the  other, 
planted  at  an  average  distance  of  six  square  feet.  Not  a 
weed  sullies  these  beautiful  and  regular  plantations  The 
sugar-works  are  extensive  and  neat,  and  all  the  arrange 
ments  for  manufacture  are  exquisite The  population 

of  the  island  is  immense,  amounting  to  136,000  souls  on  167 
square  miles,  on  a  soil  which  does  not  and  cannot  belong 
to  it 

"Trinidad  has  endured  harder  trials,  from  which  she  has 
emerged,  as  we  shall  see,  by  replacing  her  20,000  freed  ne 
groes  in  part  by  Indians  ;  but  the  happiness  and  tranquillity 
of  its  freedmen  are  the  same.'7 

Behold  the  picture  which  a  colonist  of  Jamaica  drew,  at 
the  same  epoch,  of  the  state  of  the  colored  community, 
which  almost  entirely  composes  the  population  of  this  isl 
and,  occupied,  on  a  surface  of  6,400  square  miles,  by  369,000 
blacks  and  only  16,000  whites  :  *  — 

"  It  may  be  supposed  that  the  whites  have  the  pre-emi 
nence  there But,  apart  from  that  pre-eminence  which 

results  from  wealth  and  intelligence  in  every  community, 

the  whites  have  no  privilege  over  their  fellow-citizens 

The  colored  man  holds  a  position  in  no  wise  inferior,  and  we 
find  no  reason  to  complain  that  he  is  on  the  same  footing 

with  ourselves Our  bar  is  not  crowded,  but  colored 

lawyers  hold  the  first  places  there.  Colored  physicians 

practise  in  concurrence  with  the  whites These  are 

facts  which  it  is  important  to  establish,  for  all  this  progress 
has  been  accomplished  since  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
island.  We  have  proved  by  experience  that  the  colored 
man  can  raise  himself  to  the  first  rank  of  civil  society, 
and  hold  his  place  there  as  well  as  any  European  by 
origin.'7 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1851,  VII.  p.  459. 


INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  FEEED  CLASSES.      341 

If  we  consult  the  reports  on  education,  religion,  arid 
criminality,  in  the  different  colonies,  we  verify  everywhere 
the  progress  of  the  family  through  marriage  and  property, 
the  zeal  in  attending  and  even  founding  churches  and 
schools,  the  perfect  tranquillity  enjoyed  by  person  and 
property  from  the  earliest  date.  Doubtless  these  senti 
ments  arid  these  efforts  are  not  universal  ;  over  a  great 
number  of  human  beings  depraved  at  once  by  their  nature 
and  by  slavery,  idleness  has  resumed  its  rights,  debauchery 
and  drunkenness  have  not  lost  their  dominion.  "  Great  in 
dulgence  is  needed/7  wrote  a  colonist,*  "towards  those 
who  have  experienced  in  their  life  both  the  weight  of  the 
chains  of  slavery,  and  the  boundless  joys  of  freedom  ;  their 
memories  are  not  sufficiently  effaced,  their  sentiments  not 
sufficiently  changed,  for  them  not  to  continue  to  seek  the 
enjoyment  of  idleness  after  a  long  day  of  labor  ;  but  it  will 
be  the  fault  of  the  colonists  if  the  children  of  these  men  are 
suffered  to  grow  to  become  a  reproach  and  danger  to  the 
country,  as  has  already  been  the  case  with  too  great  a 
number." 

But,  in  conclusion,  five  years,  ten  years,  twenty  years 
after  the  abolition  of  slavery,  we  have  the  right  to  re 
peat  :  — 

Liberty  has  not  led  800,000  men  to  barbarism.  Their 
moral,  intellectual,  and  religious  amelioration  is  incontest 
able  ;  the  earth  has  several  thousand  more  freeholders,  hu 
manity  counts  several  hundred  thousand  men  elevated  a 
degree  in  the  scale  of  being.  A  great  action  has  been  ac 
complished  by  a  great  people. 

*  Revue  coloniak,  1854,  XII.  p.  226. 


CHAPTER    III. 

INFLUENCE  OF  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  COLONIES. 

To  have  set  men  at  liberty  is  not  all ;  it  is  necessary 
to  place  them  in  society.  Now,  the  former  slaves  have 
eagerly  acquired  property ;  they  have  in  great  numbers 
desired  and  they  relish  family  life ;  but  have  they  con 
tinued  to  labor,  or  have  they  broken  off  all  connection  with 
their  old  masters,  and  withdrawn  far  from  cities  and  inhab 
ited  places  ? 

It  is  affirmed  that  this  has  been  so  ;  and  the  necessity  of 
renewing  the  agricultural  force  of  the  colonies  by  a  large 
immigration,  as  well  as  the  disastrous  diminution  of  their 
production,  are  given  as  proofs  of  the  assertion. 

It  is  fitting  to  reply  separately  to  these  two  exaggerated 
affirmations. 

§  1.     LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION. 

The-  economical  condition  of  colonial  society  is  very  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  European  society. 

In  Europe,  the  territory  is  occupied  by  a  considerable, 
sometimes  superabundant  population.  The  first  labor  of 
this  population  is  to  cultivate  the  soil  which  yields  them  a 
support.  When  hands  are  scarce,  and  wages  increase  under 
the  influence  of  a  large  demand  for  labor,  either  the  compe 
tition  of  laborers  intervenes  to  maintain  a  reasonable  rate, 
or  it  is  decided  to  reduce  production  in  proportion,  without 
going  to  a  distance  to  seek  foreign  labor  at  great  expense. 

In  the  colonies,  vast  territories  are  occupied  by  an  insuffi- 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  343 

cicnt  population,  whose  principal  production  is  commodities 
for  exportation,  instead  of  food  destined  for  the  support  of 
the  inhabitants.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  obtain  every 
thing  from  without,  and  consequently  impossible  to  reduce 
the  production  without  being  exposed  to  famine.  Besides, 
if  the  scarcity  of  hands  increases  the  price  of  labor,  there 
is  not  a  neighboring  population  at  hand  to  reduce  it  by 
competition  ;  whence  it  follows,  that  the  more  the  price  of 
labor  increases,  the  more  the  quantity  of  labor  diminishes  ; 
if  the  price  of  the  product  be  protected  by  monopoly,  the 
producer  does  not  fear  to  pay  high,  but  he  sells  high,  and 
the  consumption  suffers  or  is  checked  ;  if  the  monopoly  be 
destroyed,  it  being  impossible  to  reduce  the  price  of  labor, 
the  commodity  is  produced  at  a  loss,  and  the  producer  is 
ruined.  But  it  is  much  worse  when  labor  is  wholly  lack 
ing.  Now,  the  colonies  always  live  under  this  menace. 
How  fix  the  laborer  in  one  place  ?  By  wages  ?  lie  can  sup 
ply  his  own  needs  by  laboring  for  himself  on  a  land  and  un 
der  a  sky  which  labor  for  him.  By  property  ?  The  parcel 
ling  out  of  lands  is  unfavorable  to  large  production  ;  sugar 
especially,  the  true  wealth  of  the  colonies,  can  only  be  pro 
duced  on  a  large  scale.  It  seems  as  if  we  were  reduced  to 
a  single  means,  slavery,  which  holds  the  laborer  by  force  to 
his  work. 

This  serious  difficulty  explains  the  obstinacy  of  the  colo 
nists  in  maintaining  so  disgraceful  an  institution.  They 
always  believed  that  they  had  to  sacrifice  fatally  either  their 
conscience  or  their  wealth,  and  conscience  was  worsted  in 
the  struggle  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  this  economical  posi 
tion  gives  the  true  reason  of  one  of  the  incontestable 
consequences  of  emancipation  in  the  English  colonies,  as 
everywhere  else,  —  namely,  the  desertion  of  a  part  of  the 
plantations,  and  consequently  the  decline  of*  production, 
and  the  ruin  of  some  proprietors. 

It  is  said  that  freedom  has  urged  the  negroes  to  idleness  ; 


344  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

0 

this  is  not  correct.  The  idle  have  become  vagabonds  ;  but 
the  diligent  have  become  freeholders  and  artisans.  Labor 
has  been  transformed,  not  destroyed  ;  that  has  happened 
which  happens  in  every  place  where  a  scanty  popula 
tion  has  before  it  an  extended  and  fertile  territory,  at 
tracting  it  by  the  temptation  of  property,  and  towns, 
offering  it  a  more  varied,  more  agreeable,  and  more  lucra 
tive  existence. 

Herein  is  the  great  difficulty  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
Russian  serfs  ;  the  lands  will  cease  to  be  cultivated  if  the 
cultivators  change  place,  and  it  is  quite  natural  that  they 
should  change  place  if  they  find  elsewhere  what  every  man 
seeks, — greater  happiness.  Let  it  not  be  said,  therefore, 
that  freedom  has  killed  labor  ;  it  has  produced  what  it  was 
naturally  destined  to  produce  in  the  economical  condition  of 
colonial  society  ;  and  this  is  so  true,  that,  on  asking  in 
which  of  the  English  colonies  the  labor  of  the  former  slaves 
has  most  diminished,  and  in  which  it  has  least  changed,  it 
is  found  that  there  has  been  serious  perturbation  at  Guiana, 
where  the  proportion  of  the  population  to  the  territory  is 
smallest,  and  none  at  all  at  Barbadoes,  where  the  propor 
tion  of  the  population  to  the  territory  is  greatest. 

We  must  also  take  into  account  the  natural  wish  of  every 
man  to  flee  the  place  where  he  has  suffered,  and  fully  to 
secure  himself  by  flight  from  being  brought  back  to  it ; 
what  released  prisoner  chooses  lodgings  within  two  'paces 
of  his  prison  ?  This  repugnance  is  the  more  keen  as  the 
freedman  has  suffered  more  and  is  less  intelligent.  Wher 
ever  the  slave  had  been  well  treated,  wherever  freedom  had 
been  preceded  by  a  solid  intellectual  and  religious  educa 
tion,  the  transition  was  easy,  as  at  Antigua,  Trinidad,  and 
St.  Lucia.*  Wherever  the  treatment  had  been  harsher, 
as  in  so  many  places  that  might  be  named,  wherever  edu 
cation  had  been  neglected,  as  at  Tobago  and  Mauritius, 

*  Revue  eoloniale,  1843,  pp.  26,  38. 


LABOR   AND   IMMIGRATION.  345 

the  desertion  was  almost  universal  and  continuous.  Was 
this  the  fault  of  liberty  ?  No,  it  was  the  fault  of  slavery. 

In  conditions  so  formidable  and  so  easy  to  foresee,  it  was 
due  at  least  to  take  some  precautions  in  advance.  The  in 
termediate  state  of  apprenticeship  was  designed  to  smooth 
transition,  but  it  ended  abruptly,  and  neither  the  local 
powers  nor  the  government  took  any  effective  measures 
against  vagrancy. 

"It  is  generally  admitted/7  wrote  Lord  Grey  in  1853,* 
"  that  the  measure  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  voted  in  1833 
was  unhappily  very  defective,  inasmuch  as  it  contained  no 
adequate  prescription  to  oblige  the  negroes  to  labor  at  the 
time  when  the  means  of  direct  constraint  to  which  they 
had  been  subjected  as  slaves  were  about  to  be  withdrawn 
from  the  masters. " 

It  did  not  occur  to  the  legislators,  as  at  the  Isle  of  Bour 
bon,  to  propose  to  the  negroes  engagements  for  a  term  of 
years.  A  few  years  later,  the  same  Lord  Grey  ingeniously 
advised  the  colonies  to  force  the  inhabitants  to  labor  by 
taxation,  a  means  of  creating  resources  to  the  colonies,  and 
rendering  living  so  expensive  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
escape  labor  ;  but  these  taxes  were  not  at  first  established. 
Furthermore,  instead  of  retaining  or  recalling  the  slaves  by 
kind  treatment,  and  concerting  together  to  effect  this  end, 
some  brutally  haggled  with  them  for  the  cabin  and  garden 
which  attached  them  to  the  plantations ;  others  consented  to 
exorbitant  wages,  which  exaggerated  the  pretensions  of  the 
laborers  and  the  prices  demanded  of  the  consumer.  This 
took  place  especially  at  Jamaica,  where  so  many  years 
were  wasted  in  unreasonable  struggles. 

It' may  be  said,  that  in  all  places  labor  was  wellnigh 
abandoned  to  itself,  and  that  the  freed  slaves  of  yester 
day  were  placed  face  to  face  with  the  condition  of  labor 
ing  for  others  without  being  forced  to  it  either  by  con- 

t  Revue  cokniale,  1854,  p.  256. 
15* 


S46  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

straint  or  necessity.  In  truth,  if  anything  can  be  surprising 
in  the  midst  of  these  facts  and  errors,  it  is,  not  that  labor 
has  diminished,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  has  not  wholly 
disappeared.  Now  as  we  see,  in  the  first  years  of  freedom, 
the  production  of  some  colonies,  instead  of  diminishing,  has 
increased ;  in  others,  it  is  true,  it  has  been  reduced  one 
half;  in  all,  on  the  average,  it  has  decreased  only  one 
fourth  ;  in  none  has  it  been  entirely  interrupted. 

Be  it  as  it  may  with  respect  to  these  causes  and  effects, 
it  is  evident  that  the  colonies  feel  after  freedom  more  than 
before  what  is  at  all  times  their  great  necessity,  —  the  need 
of  increasing  the  population  by  a  large  immigration  of  new 
laborers,  in  order  to  bring  back  wages  to  a  reasonable  rate 
and  production  to  a  high  standard.  On  all  sides,  the  colo 
nists  demand  of  the  government  to  authorize  and  favor  this 
immigration. 

This  wish  and  the  preceding  considerations  are  precisely 
the  conclusions  of  the  Keport  of  the  Committee  of  Inquiry 
appointed  in  1842,  as  we  have  said,  on  the  motion  of  Lord 
Stanley,  and  which  so  loudly  proclaimed  the  religious, 
moral,  and  material  progress  of  the  freed  classes  ;  the  com 
mittee  added  :  — 

"1. 

"  2.  Labor  has  ceased,  because  the  negroes  have  applied 
themselves  to  work  more  profitable  to  them  than  field  labor, 
and  because,  for  the  most  part,  they  have  been  able,  espe 
cially  in  the  large  colonies,  to  procure  lands  with  facility, 
live  at  their  ease,  and  enrich  themselves  without  being 
obliged  besides  to  give  to  the  planters  three  or  four  days 
of  seven  hours'  labor  in  each  week.  The  low  price  of 
lands,  the  consequence  of  a  fertility  which  yields  beyond 
the  needs  of  the  population,  the  ill-will  of  the  proprietors, 
and  the  severity  of  the  laws  which  regulate  the  relations 
between  the  laborers  and  their  employers,  —  these  are  the 
principal  causes  of  the  difficulties  experienced. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  347 

"3.  The  scarcity  of  hands  and  the  high  price  of  wages 
have  ruined  many  large  estates,  especially  at  Jamaica, 
Guiana,  and  Trinidad,  and  diminished  the  export  products. 

"4.  It  is  expedient  to  make  more  equitable  arrangements 
with  the  laborers,  to  revise  the  laws,  and,  under  the  sur 
veillance  of  responsible  public  officers,  to  encourage  the 
immigration  of  a  new  population." 

But  how  effect  this  immigration  ?  Both  before  and  since 
emancipation,  it  had  already  been  undertaken  by  private 
enterprise,  but  on  a  somewhat  small  scale  ;  Indians,  China 
men,  Madeirians,  and  lastly  a  few  free  or  liberated  Africans,* 
had  been  brought  to  the  various  colonies,  and  this  immigra 
tion  had  been  regulated  by  numerous  acts  of  the  govern 
ment  and  local  legislatures,  f  But  the  colonies  by  addresses, 
and  the  ports  by  petitions,  unceasingly  demanded  that  it 
should  be  more  freely  authorized  and  more  largely  encour 
aged.  Here  begun  in  the  mother  country,  in  public  opin 
ion  and  the  authorities,  a  lively  struggle  between  the  prac 
tical  needs  of  the  colonies,  the  honorable  scruples  of  the 
abolitionists,  and  the  political  spirit  of  the  government. 

Lord  Stanley  had  demanded  the  appointment  of  a  second 
committee  to  examine  into  the  state  of  the  English  settle 
ments  on  the  coast  of  Africa  and  the  possibility  of  an  im 
migration  of  laborers  from  this  coast  to  the  West  Indies  ; 
this  committee  asked  that  these  settlements,  instead  of  be 
ing  administered  by  English  merchants,  should  be  replaced 
under  the  government  of  the  crown.  These  merchants  in 
fact,  if  they  did  not  carry  on  the  slave-trade,  at  least  facili- 

*  England  derived  great  advantage  from  liberated  Africans ;  that  is,  from  the 
slaves  seized  by  her  cruisers  on  slave-ships,  who  were  declared  free,  but  held 
to  an  engagement  towards  their  liberator.  A  doubtfully  legitimate  procedure, 
it  will  be  granted,  of  a  subtle  and  contestable  philanthropy ! 

f  See  the  acts  on  the  Abstract  of  Abolition,  published  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  III.  p.  491,  especially  the  despatch  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Colonies,  Lord 
John  Russell,  to  the  Governor  of  Sierra  Leone,  March  20,  1841  (Ibid.,  p.  506), 
and  the  Order  in  Council  of  September  7, 1838,  which  exacts  that  contracts  shall 
not  be  closed  until  after  the  arrival  in  the  colony. 


348  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

tated  it  by  selling  to  the  slave-traders  the  cargoes  which 
the  latter  afterwards  exchanged  for  slaves.  The  committee 
did  not  doubt  the  immense  advantage  which  a  sojourn  in 
the  West  Indies  would  assure  to  the  Africans  ;  civilized 
and  Christianized,  they  would  carry  back  to  their  country 
the  benefit  of  new  enlightenment,  if  they  returned  ;  if  they 
remained  in  the  colonies,  they  would  lower  the  price  of 
labor  by  their  competition, — a  most  important  result,  for 
on  the  day  when  free  labor  should  be  cheaper  than  servile 
labor,  the  latter  would  receive  its  death-blow.  But  the 
committee  believed  this  supply  possible  only  from  among 
free  Africans,  of  which  it  was  estimated  there  were  40,000 
or  50,000  in  Sierra  Leone,  a  few  hundreds  in  Gambia  and 
the  other  English  settlements  on  the  Gold  Coast,  and  some 
thousands  among  the  tribes  without  slaves,  as  the  inhabit 
ants  of  the  Kroo  Coast* 

The  committee  no  more  than-  Lord  Stanley  admitted 
that  immigrants  could  be  redeemed,  an  operation  which  too 
closely  resembled  the  slave-trade  not  to  lead  to  the  same 
abuses. 

In  1842,  the  planters  of  Guiana  had  wished  to  purchase 
slaves  on  the  Gold  Coast,  who  were  to  be  immediately 
emancipated  and  taken  to  Demerara  as  free  laborers.  The 
Governor  communicated  this  plan  to  Lord  Stanley,  who 
consulted  the  judicial  counsel  of  the  crown,  and  received 
the  following  curious  reply  :f  — 

"  The^purchase  of  slaves  on  the  Gold  Coast,  even  for  the 
purpose  of  emancipating  them  immediately  and  transport 
ing  them  with  their  full  consent  to  Guiana,  would  be  illegal ; 
the  parties  engaged  in  this  transaction  would  be  guilty  of 
having  infringed  Statute  5  George  IV.,  ch.  113,  and  lia 
ble  to  the  penalties  pertaining  thereto. 

"  The  purchasers  of  slaves  are  declared  guilty  by  Art. 

*  Report  cf  M.  Lechevallier,  II.  933. 
t  Revue  colonial*,  1843,  p.  151. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  349 

10  of  this  statute,  and  sentenced  to  fourteen  years'  depor 
tation. 

"  In  our  opinion,  the  terms  of  this  statute  clearly  in 
clude  the  case  of  the  purchase  of  slaves,  even  in  the  end  of 
their  emancipation.  It  probably  wished  at  the  same  time  to 
discourage  the  traffic  in  slaves  and  favor  the  civilization 
of  Africa  ;  but  it  is  evident  that,  if  the  purchase  of  slaves 
is  an  evil,  in  the  sense  that  it  induces  those  who  sell  them 
to  procure  them  in  order  that  they  may  be  redeemed,  the 
detriment  is  the  same  whether  the  ransomed  slaves  receive 
freedom  or  not." 

The  committee  arrived  at  similar  conclusions.  The  re 
sult  of  these  counsels  was  the  despatch  dated  February  6, 
1843,  by  which  immigration  of  free  or  slave  Africans  was 
permitted  only  from  three  places,  where  the  surveillance  of 
slaves  was  possible,  Sierra  Leone,  Bonavista,  and  Loando. 
Immigration  by  means  of  redemption  remained  absolutely 
prohibited. 

The  immigration  of  Indians  had  not  been  interdicted,  and 
England  had  in  her  own  possessions  an  enormous  popula 
tion  of  men  accustomed  to  tropical  labors,  an  incomparable 
resource  for  those  of  her  colonies  who  were  not  prevented 
by  distance  from  profiting  by  it. 

Since  1815,  the  convicts  of  Calcutta  had  been  trans 
ported  to  Mauritius,  and  the  inhabitants  of  this  colony  had 
adopted  the  habit  of  availing  themselves  of  these  Indians, 
which  they  preferred  to  making  the  efforts  or  sacrifices  ne 
cessary  to  utilize  the  freed  negroes,  less  civilized,  as  we 
have  seen,  at  Mauritius  than  anywhere  else.  In  1837, 
20,000  Indians  had  been  already  introduced.*  Whether  the 
Governor-General  of  India  was  terrified  at  this  emigration, 
which  raised  the  price  of  labor  and  of  rice  in  India, f  or 
whether  the  government  of  the  mother  country  was  ter- 

*  Documents  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  II.  252 ;  V.  473. 
t  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  p.  461 


350  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

rifled  at  the  idea  of  the  future  which  such  competition  was 
preparing  for  the  freedman,  East  Indian  immigration  was 
prohibited  in  1838. 

But  in  1842  it  was  re-established  by  an  Order  in  Council, 
dated  January  15,  then  by  an  act  of  Parliament,  dated  De 
cember  2,  and  subjected  to  minute  formalities  ;  *  then,  after 
numerous  abuses,  reduced  to  the  single  port  of  Calcutta, 
beginning  from  January  1,  1844,  and  intrusted  to  govern 
ment.  From  1834  to  1841,  94,004  Coolies  were  introduced 
into  Mauritius,  which  formerly  employed  only  23,000  slaves 
in  field  labor. f  The  colony,  during  this  time,  exceeded  the 
statistics  of  production  anterior  to  emancipation,  carried 
from  73,000,000  pounds  of  sugar,  in  1832,  to  80,000,000 
pounds,  in  1846,  but  by  spending  11,493,340  francs,  burden 
ing  itself  with  an  enormous  debt,J  exposing  itself  to  fearful 
immorality, §  and  becoming  an  Asiatic  instead  of  an  African 
colony.  The  other  principal  colonies  followed  this  example 
somewhat  slowly.  Jamaica  received,  in  1844,  250  Indians, 
Guiana  556,  and  Trinidad  220  ;  these  numbers  increased 
during  the  two  following  years  :  ||  — 

1845.  1846. 

Jamaica  .         .         .     '    .         .         .     1,735  2,515 

Guiana          .-.-...         3,497  4,120 

Trinidad.         .         .         .         .         .     2,083  2,076 

Guiana  also  received  2,548  in  1841,  and  Trinidad  1,024, 
but  the  operation  was  then  discontinued.  It  was  inter- 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  III.  p.  559. 

t  Ibid.,  1845,  VII.  p.  205;  1847,  XII.  p.  354;  1848,  I.  p.  168.  The  Coolie  costs 
from  10s.  to  14s.  per  month. 

J  The  expenses  for  the  annual  introduction  of  6,000  immigrants  were  esti 
mated,  in  1844,  at  £50,000  (Revue  coloniale,  1845,  VII.  p.  475).  Now  6,000  per 
year  scarcely  sufficed  to  make  up  for'the  deaths  and  departures;  the  real  ex 
pense  was  from  180  to  250  fr.  per  head.  Ibid.,  1849,  p.  143. 

§  From  1834  to  1839,  of  25,468  Coolies,  there  were  727  women;  of  the  40,318 
introduced  from  1842  to  1844,  453  women;  of  the  5,092  introduced  in  1845,  646 
women;  in  all,  of  94,004  Indians,  13,284  women. 

||  Revue  coloniale,  1847,  XIII.  p.  154;  1848,  I.  p.  170. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  351 

rupted  with  respect  to  Jamaica,  in  1846,  bf  the  Legislative 
Assembly. 

The  Chinese  immigration,  attempted  after  the  example  of 
Java,  and  authorized  in  1842  by  Lord  Stanley,*  did  not  de 
velop  to  any  great  extent. 

The  African  immigration,  reduced  within  narrow  limits, 
produced  insignificant  results.  In  1847,  Lord  Grey  permit 
ted  immigration  from  every  part  of  the  African  coast,  espe 
cially  from  Kroo,  but  still  prohibited  redemption.  The 
colonies  did  not  receive,  therefore,  more  than  7,000  or 
8,000  African  immigrants,  free  or  liberated,  from  1840  to 
1847. f  If  to  this  number  be  added  about  14,000  natives  of 
Madeira,^  received  in  1846  and  1847,  it  is  seen  that,  before 
1848,  immigration  had  not  brought  into  the  eighteen  slave 
colonies  other  than  Mauritius  more  than  30,000  immigrants, 
which  does  not  mean  30,000  effective  laborers.  Thus,  there 
fore,  if  Mauritius  be  excepted,  the  3,200,000  quintals  pro 
duced  by  these  colonies  in  1847,  inferior  only  by  400,000 
quintals  to  the  average  product  of  1814  and  1815,  were 
really  very  nearly  the  same  as  the  product  of  the  labor  of 
the  former  slaves. 

The  colonists  demanded  that  immigration  by  way  of  re 
demption  should  be  authorized.  The  abolitionists  still 
maintained,  some,  that  this  operation  was  a  return  to  the 
slave-trade  ;  others,  that  it  was  the  best  means  of  discour 
aging  it.§  The  government  resisted,  and  it  did  rightly,  for 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  p.  514/ 

t  1840-1842         .        .        .        ....        •     3,045 

1844-1845 1,390 

1846 from  3,000  to  4,000 

(Revue  coloniale,  1848, 1.  p.  173.) 
$  Guiana     .        .       .        .        , .'     . ,  '.  '.        r        •    9,750 

St.  Vincent .  -     .        1,762 

Antigua     .        .        .        .     -    .  ,  '..--.     .        ....     1,068 

Small  colonies 1,945 

§  In  an  excellent  work  on  African  emigration  (Revue  coloniale,  January,  1858), 
M.  Delarbre  affirms  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  of  this  opinion.  On  reading  the 


352  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

it  thus  forced  th%  colonies  to  seek  elsewhere  the  diminution 
of  the  net  cost,  to  multiply  machinery,  and  to  take  pains  to 
retain  the  freed  negroes  in  the  fields  by  treating  them  better, 
instead  of  completing  their  estrangement  from  labor  by  an 
overwhelming  competition. 

They  will  show  themselves  broader  when,  exposed  to  for 
eign  rivalry  by  the  reduction  of  tariffs,  they  will  have  need 
of  more  favors. 

But,  except  at  Mauritius,  immigration  does  not  assume 
vast  proportions. 

The  total  number  of  immigrants  introduced  into  the  Eng 
lish  colonies  of  the  West  Indies  and  Mauritius,  from  the 
abolition  of  slavery  to  the  end  of  1849,  is  179,223,*  and  in 
this  number  Mauritius  represents  106,638  ;  there  remain, 
therefore,  for  the  other  colonies,  but  72,585,  thus  appor 
tioned  :  — 

Guiana      .         .         ...         .         .         .  39,043 

Jamaica         .......  14,519 

Trinidad 13,356 

Grenada 1,476 

St.  Vincent 1,197 

Antigua 1,075 

Dominica 732 

St.  Lucia 665 

Nevis         .         .        .        .        .        .,        .        ••'  427 

St.  Christopher      .         .         .  *     .        .        .  .       95 

From  1849  to  1855,  the  colonies  received  31,861  new  im 
migrants,  of  whom  19,519  were  for  Guiana,  while  the  island 
of  Mauritius  alone  received  76,342  immigrants. f 

On  grouping  these  immigrants  according  to  nativity,  we 

speech  delivered  by  this  illustrious  orator,  July  27,  1846,  we  see  that  he  speaks 
only  of  free,  laborers,  and  that  he  declares  that  he  has  not  great  confidence  in 
the  introduction  of  free  labor.  Jbid.,  1846,  IX.  p.  361. 

*  Eeport  of  the  Committee  of  Emigration,  March,  1850.  Revue  coloniale,  1850, 
V.  p.  220. 

t  Revue  coloniale,  1858,  XIX.  p.  178. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  353 

see  that  the  English  colonies  had  received,  at  the  end  of  1.855, 
an  aggregate  of  235,999  immigrants,  of  which 

27,906  were  Africans, 
26,533      "      Madeirians, 

2,107      "      Chinese, 
151,191      "      Indians. 

This  table  proves  several  important  points  :  — 

1.  England  has  held  a  firm  hand  in  persisting  to  interdict 
the  immigration  of  ransomed  Africans  ;  in  twenty  years,  its 
colonies  have  only  received  about  1,000  annually,  all  free 
or  liberated  Africans  ;    and  this  is  so  true,  that,   although 
it  may  be  presumed  that  fraudulent  transportations  have 
evaded  the  orders  of  government,  the  African  immigration 
from   Sierra  Leone  has  ceased  to  figure  in  the  official  statis 
tics  since  1853,  because  the  captures  have  diminished,  and 
the  Africans  are  no  longer  willing  to  emigrate.* 

2.  It  is  true  that  England  had,  in  her  East  Indian  posses 
sions,  a  resource  which  was  not  at  the  disposal  of  other  na 
tions.     More  than  150,000  immigrants,  out  of  235,000,  are 
of  this  origin. 

3.  Mauritius   absorbs   more   than  half  the  immigration  ; 
less  than  100,000  immigrants  are  left  for  the  other  colo 
nies. f  . 

Now,  at  Mauritius,  the  production  of  sugar  has  tripled, 
while  its  population  has  quadrupled  ;  a  part  of  the  agricul 
tural  force  has  therefore  been  renewed,  and  a  large  number 
of  the  former  slaves  have  changed  occupation.  But  in  the 
other  colonies,  an  increase  of  less  than  100,000  immigrants 
in  the  face  of  the  former  slave  population,  which  attained 
the  number  of  703,677  persons,  is  truly  insignificant.  It 
is  evident,  therefore,  that  in  the  West  Indies  the  principal 
element  of  labor  is,  and  will  long  be,  the  black  population. 

*  From  1841  to  1851,  14,113  sailed  from  Sierra  Leone.     Revue  coloniale,  1852, 
VIII.  p.  291. 
f  Revue  coloniale,  1854,  XII.  p.  456. 


354  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

The  public  opinion  that  consists  in  believing  that,  since 
emancipation,  immigration  alone  has  rescued  labor,  is  a 
prejudice,  as  is  formally  declared  by  the  English  Committee 
of  Immigration,  in  its  report  presented  to  Parliament  in 
1853.* 

The  success  of  emancipation,  said  Lord  Stanley  in  1842, 
has  been  complete  as  to  the  principal  end  of  the  measure ; 
the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  immigration.  The  success 
has  been  complete  as  to  the  principal  end  of  the  measure, 
which  was  the  lowering  of  wages  and  the  increase  of  pro 
duction,  the  progress  of  which  will  be  presented  in  the 
following  chapter  ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that,  in  the  moral 
point  of  view,  immigration  has  been,  and  is,  a  scourge,  not 
only  at  the  epoch  when  it  was  an  unwatched  enterprise  of 
private  speculation,  but  even  after  the  intervention  of  the 
government.  Admirable  indeed  are  all  these  regulations 
by  which  humanity  strives  to  protect,  by  the  most  minute 
precautions,  the  life  arid  liberty  of  the  most  degraded  of 
beings,  —  of  a  poor  Indian,  or  a  wretched  negro  ;  but,  in 
practice,  how  are  these  regulations  executed  ?  The  colo 
nists  of  Mauritius  address  themselves  to  the  commercial 
houses  of  Calcutta, f  and  the  latter  employ  Indians,  known 
by  the  name  of  duffadars,  a  sort  of  traffickers  in  men,  or 
crimpers,  who  speculate  on  the  laborer,  speculate  on  the 
merchant,  and,  by  more  or  less  disgraceful  manoeuvres,  pro 
cure  for  the  colonists  what  workmen? — vagabonds,  stroll 
ers  of  the  bazaar,  the  offscourings  of  the  population. 

It  is  impossible  to  induce  Indian  women  of  an  honorable 
class  and  irreproachable  morality  to  quit  their  native  soil. 
All  the  reports  agree  that,  in  consequence,  the  relations  be 
tween  the  sexes  have  the  most  marked  character  of  degra 
dation  ;  that  concubinage  is  becoming  more  frequent  and 
more  open,  and  that  the  passions  which  result  from  it 

«  Revue  coloniale,  1858,  XIX.  p.  165. 
t   IUd.,  1844,  HI.  p.  458. 


LABOR  AND  IMMIGRATION.  355 

lead  to  fatal  quarrels  and  bloodshed.*  It  was  hoped  that 
at  Mauritius  the  number  of  women  would  reach  50  per 
cent  in  1860  ;  but  in  1851  there  were  still  seven  men  to 
two  women. 

In  the  other  colonies,  vices  and  crimes  have  likewise  en 
tered  in  with  the  immigrants. 

Upon  the  whole,  the  result  of  the  English  experiment  as 
to  immigration  is  as  follows. 

The  only  moral  and  effective  immigration  would  be  that 
of  families ;  but  with  family,  a  man  is  unwilling  to  quit 
his  country  ;  without  family,  he  roves  from  place  to  place 
instead  of  settling.  In  families,  immigration  is  expensive  ; 
without  families,  it  must  be  constantly  begun  anew.  It  is 
an  experiment  useful  to  production,  prejudicial  to  civiliza 
tion.  After  half  a  century  of  population,  the  colonies  will 
have  a  surcrease  of  population,  which  will  be  a  great  ad 
vantage;  but  this  population  will  be  wretched,  mongrel, 
and  vicious,  if  not  recruited  from  other  sources,  or  formed 
into  families. 

Now  of  all  immigrants,  which  is  the  best  ?  The  one  who 
settles  most  willingly,  labors  best,  becomes  civilized  most 
speedily,  and  most  easily  establishes  the  family  relation, 
is  the  African ;  the  Indian  cannot  replace  him.  But  how 
obtain  African  families?  In  the  colonies,  by  the  wide 
spread  influence  of  the  Christian  religion  ;  in  Africa,  by  the 
foundation  of  extended  settlements,  where  free  arid  con 
verted  families  can  establish  themselves  by  degrees.  Until 
this  is  done,  immigration  will  be  void,  if  confined  to  Afri 
cans  already  free  ;  distrusted,  if  procuring  them  by  the  way 
of  purchase. 

But,  without  speaking  of  the  future,  we  will  confine  our 
selves  to  verifying  from  the  past  these  two  results,  fitted 
to  gladden  the  hearts  of  the  partisans  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery. 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1858,  XIX.  p.  165. 


356  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

In  the  first  place,  the  slaves  who  have  become  free  are, 
wherever  they  labor,  better  workmen  and  more  moral  men 
than  all  the  immigrants  that  are  compared  with  them  ;  in 
the  second  place,  although  their  labor  may  have  dimin 
ished,  especially  at  Jamaica,  Guiana,  and  Trinidad,  never- 
thelfss  the  immigration  into  the  English  colonies,  with  the 
exception  of  the  island  of  Mauritius,  has  been  inconsider 
able,  and  to  the  labor  of  the  former  slaves  is  due  almost  the 
whole  of  the  present  production. 

We  shall  now  see  what  production  in  the  English  colonies 
has  become  since  the  Act  of  Emancipation. 

§  2.    PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM. 

Prior  to  the  epoch  when  slavery  was  abolished  in  the 
English  colonies,  their  condition  was  far  from  prosperous, 
and  the  inquiry  instituted  in  1832*  established  that  this 
distress,  aggravated  by  the  uncertainty  which  weighed  on 
property,  through  the  influence  of  the  debates  on  emancipa 
tion,  dated  back  to  more  real  and  profounder  causes,  the 
gravest  of  which  was  the  debasement  of  prices,  resulting 
from  the  excess  of  production.  The  net  cost  of  sugar  was 
estimated  at  30  fr.  20  c.  per  100  pounds,  including  the 
freight,  but  without  calculating  anything  for  the  interest  of 
the  capital  ;  and  the  selling  price  at  29  fr.  60  c.  ;  thus  mak 
ing  a  deficit  of  60  c.  The  sum  of  the  colonial  products 
being  greater  than  the  consumption  of  the  mother  coun 
try,  it  had  been  necessary  to  confront  competition  in  other 
markets  with  products  less  burdened  with  expenses.  The 
measures  for  ameliorating  the  condition  of  slaves  and  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade  had  at  once  raised  the  cost 
and  the  maintenance  of  laborers.  The  continuance  of  the 
restrictions  imposed  on  importations  by  the  colonial  sys- 

*  Rapport  sur  les  questions  coloniaks,  by  M.  Jules  Lechevallier,  Tom.  II.  p.  331. 
Report  made  in  the  English  Parliament,  April  10,  1832. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      357 

tern,  the  interdiction  of  refineries,  and  the  establishment  of 
high  duties,  embarrassed  the  colonies.  The  inquiry  re 
vealed  an  almost  universal  distress,  and  the  committee  con 
cluded  on  the  removal  of  several  prohibitions,  and  on  a 
considerable  reduction  of  duties. 

To  those  who  pretend  that  these  evils  had  been  caused 
by  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  it  may  be  answered 
that  a  preceding  inquiry,  instituted  in  1807,*  before  this 
measure,  had  revealed  the  same  distress.  Only  it  was  true, 
that  the  maintenance  of  this  traffic  preserved  to  foreign  col 
onies  a  disgraceful  advantage  to  the  detriment  of  those  that 
abstained  from  it. 

The  English  colonies,  at  the  time  of  emancipation,  re 
ceived  the  advantages  and  endured  the  burdens  of  the 
system  of  reciprocal  monopoly,  known  under  the  name  of 
the  Colonial  Compact.  Obliged  to  receive  English  pro 
ducts  under  the  English  flag,  they  carried  to  the  mother 
country  nearly  the  whole  of  their  products,  by  favor  of  a 
prohibitory  tariff.  Colonial  sugar  especially  paid  a  duty 
of  24s.  per  quintal  only,  while  foreign  sugar  had  to  pay 
a  duty  of  63s.  This  tariff  was  not  changed  for  ten  years 
after  emancipation ;  the  first  modification,  in  fact,  was  in 
1844.  Thus  the  whole  period  of  apprenticeship,  and  the 
first  six  years  of  freedom,  were  passed  under  favor  of  a 
protective  duty. 

The  average  quantity  of  sugar  imported  annually  from 
the  West  Indies f  during  the  six  years  preceding  emancipa 
tion  had  been  3,965,034  quintals.  J  During  the  four  years 
of  apprenticeship,  it  was  3,058,000  quintals ;  during  the 
first  year  of  freedom  (1839),  2,824,000  quintals  ;  during  the 

*  See,  in  the  same  document,%e  Report  of  the  Committee  of  1807,  p.  287. 

t  Speech  of  Lord  Stanley,  1842. 

|  If  we  take  the  average  of  four  years  (1831-1834),  it  is  only  3,841,837 
quintals;  if  we  take  the  average  of  twenty  years  (1814-1834),  only  3,640,712 
quintals.  These  averages  are  taken,  in  turn,  as  the  standard  in  the  official 
tables. 


358  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

second    (1840),    2,210,000   quintals ;    and  during  the  third 
(1841),  2,151,111  quintals. 

From  this  minimum  the  figures  again  ascended,  and 
reached :  — 

In  1842  2,473,715  quintals. 

1843 2,503,577       » 

1844  .         .         .         .         .         .     2,444,811        " 

1845  •         •     :  ".  .    :  .    <•    .         .         2,847,698       " 

But  under  the  influence  of  this  diminution  of  quantity, 
the  prices  rose  from  119  fr.  50  c.  in  1831,  and  134  fr.  70  c.  in 
1834,  successively  to  143  fr.  90  c.,  162  fr.,  and  even  to 
185  fr.  60  c.  in  1840. 

So  that  the  gross  income  of  the  colonies  increased,  since, 
according  to  the  calculations  of  Lord  Stanley,  the  sale  pro 
duced,  during  the  six  years  prior  to  emancipation,  an  aver 
age  of  26,600,000  fr.  ;  for  the  four  years7  apprenticeship, 
31,115,000  fr. ;  for  the  first  year  of  freedom,  32,650,000  fr.  ; 
and  for  the  second  year  of  freedom,  29, 120, 000  fr. 

In  his  memorable  report  of  1843  on  the  colonial  questions 
in  France,*  M.  Broglie  presents  the  same  calculations,  with 
other  elaborations,  which  he  sums  up  as  follows  :  — 

"A  reduction  of  one  fourth  in  the  importation  of  sugar 
produced  by  slave  colonies,  a  reduction  of  one  third  in  the 
importation  of  rum  and  coffees  ;  —  such  are  the  facts  which 
at  present  correspond  to  the  introduction  of  free  labor  into 
these  colonies. 

"The  colonists,  taken  as  a  whole,  have  received  the  in 
demnity,  sold  at  a  higher  price,  and  obtained  a  gross  reve 
nue  superior  to  that  which  they  obtained  before/'  v 

If  we  examine  the  production  of  each  colony,  we  see  that 
at  Mauritius,  where  immigration  w^s,  and  continued  to  be, 
in  great  activity,  the  figures  were,  from  the  first  year  of 
freedom,  higher  than  before. 

*  P.  23. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAB  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      359 


SLAVERY. 
1814-1834       <  '•'-".         •  <-    •  •  ''-''•         •     538,954  quintals. 


APPR  ENTICESHIP. 


1835-1838 
1839 
1810 
1841 
1842 
1843 
1844 
1845 


.     549,872  quintals. 

618,705  " 

.  545,007  " 

696,652  " 

.  676,237  " 

477,124  " 

.  540,515  " 

716,338  " 


Almost  all  the  loss  falls  on  Jamaica,  Guiana,  Grenada, 
St.  Vincent,  and  Tobago.  On  the  contrary,  Antigua,  Bar- 
badoes,  Dominica,  St.  Christopher,  St.  Lucia,  and  Trinidad 
are  progressing.  At  Montserrat,  Nevis,  and  Tortola  the 
staUstics  are  unimportant. 

But  during  the  same  time  the  production  of  the  East 
Indies  rises  from  109,596  quintals  to  1,103,181  quintals. 

Here  is  the  general  table  :  — 


Places  of 
Importation. 

Period  of 
Slavery, 
1831-1834. 

Period  of 
Apprentice 
ship, 
1835-1838. 

Period  of 
of  Liberty, 
1839  -  1845. 

1846. 

1847. 

Antigua 

Quintals. 

180,802 

Quintals. 

143,878 

Quintals. 
189,406 

Quintals.  ' 
102,644 

Quintals. 
249,201 

Barbadoes 

356,254 

409,354 

314,501 

302,496 

469,022 

Dominica 

54,214 

35,660 

45,497 

52,700 

65,451 

Grenada 

193,156 

161,308 

87,161 

76,931 

104,952 

Jamaica 

1,343,506 

1,040,070 

646,255 

572,883 

751,416 

Montserrat 

22,283 

11,032 

11,842 

5,316 

7,657 

Nevis 

47,950 

28,510 

26,523 

26,714 

41,833 

St.  Christopher 

92,079 

79,823 

101,336 

91,022 

149,096 

St.  Lucia 

57,549 

51,427 

57,070 

63,566 

88,370 

St.  Vincent 

204,095 

194,228 

127,364 

129,870 

175,615 

Tobago 

99,579 

89,332 

52,962 

38,822 

69,240 

Tortola 

16,863 

12,036 

6,180 

6,786 

8,285 

Trinidad 

316,338 

295,787 

292,023 

353,293 

393,537 

The  Bahamas 

4 

175 

832 

3,356 

Guiana 

857,165 

935,849 

542,907 

325,756 

635,622 

Total  average 

3,841,837 

3,508,469 

2,501,859 

2,152,155 

3,209,297 

Mauritius 

536,134 

549,872 

618,906 

845,304 

1,193,849 

East  Indies 

109,596 

244,630 

1,103,181 

1,425,114 

1,418,682 

360  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

We  are  astonished  at  the  disparity  of  the  figures  ;  we 
had  expected  to  see  the  same  cause  produce  everywhere 
the  same  effects.  If  they  differ,  it  is  probable  that  they  are 
not  all  due  to  the  same  cause.  In  fact,  on  entering  into  de 
tails,  we  ascertain  that  the  diminution  of  one  fourth  in  the 
products  is  explained,  apart  from  the  influence  of  emancipa 
tion,  by  a  succession  of  bad  seasons,  the  abandonment  of 
numerous  plantations  by  the  owners  themselves,  encum 
bered  with  debts  or  discouraged,  the  absolute  lack  of  cap 
ital  or  credit  wherewith  to  pay  wages,  and  the  unfriendly 
behavior  of  many  of  the  planters,  especially  at  Jamaica, 
towards  their  former  slaves,  as  much  as  by  the  tendency  of 
the  latter  to  go  to  dwell  in  towns  and  to  form  villages.* 

Taking  general  results,  we  see,  therefore,  that,  in  1845, 
that  is,  during  the  first  ten  years  of  freedom,  production 
was  not  ruined  in  the  English  colonies  by  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves.  It  increased  in  a  few,  and  diminished  in  a 
few  others.  The  total  average  reduction  was  one  fourth. 

But  wealth  results  much  less  from  the  quantity  produced 
than  from  the  net  cost  and  selling  price  of  the  product. 

Now  has  the  net  cost  been  raised  by  emancipation  ? 
Probably  it  has  ;  nevertheless,  this  point  is  strongly  con 
tested,  especially  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  Jamaica.  Is  it 
really  true  that  wages  have  attained  an  exorbitant  rate  ?  f 
If  this  be  true,  what  are  we  to  blame  for  it  ? 

*  Report  of  M.  de  Broglie,  pp.  30-42. 

t  The  opinion  of  Lord  Elgin,  Governor  of  Jamaica,  in  his  report  of  1846,  is  as 
follows:  "I  cannot  admit  that  the  rate  of  wages  has  been  exorbitant;  except 
in  a  few  instances  where  the  scale  has  been  established  by  the  planters  them 
selves,  labor  has  never  cost  more  than  Is.  Qd.  per  day."  At  Barbadoes,  wages 
were  10c?.  per  day ;  at  Antigua,  from  Qd.  to  Is. ;  at  St.  Christopher,  Is.  4d. ;  at 
Guiana,  Is.  4d. ;  at  Trinidad,  2s.  Id. ;  in  the  small  colonies,  Qd.  (Revue  coloniale, 
1843,  p.  13.)  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  distress  and  complaints  in  Jamaica 
are  of  long  standing.  From  1772  to  1792,  177  estates  were  sold  for  debt,  55  aban 
doned,  92  occupied  by  creditors,  an*d  the  clerk's  office  had  witnessed  the  record 
of  80,121  executions.  In  1807,  65  plantations  had  been  abandoned  during  the 
past  six  years.  In  1812, the  Assembly  declared  to  the  king,  that  "the  distress 
was  so  great  that  it  could  no  longer  increase."  "  Ruin  is  imminent,"  wrote  the 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      361 

Is  it  the  desertion  of  labor  that  has  caused  wages  to 
rise  ?  Is  it  the  lack  of  money  to  pay  them  ?  Is  it  the  folly 
of  planters  who  have  accorded  exorbitant  wages  in  order  to 
monopolize  laborers  ?  Is  it  the  ill-will  of  other  planters, 
who  have  estranged  the  free  negroes,  especially  by  exacting 
high  rents  for  the  cabins  and  gardens  of  which  they  had 
peaceable  possession,  or  by  paying  them  irregularly  for 
their  labor  ?  We  will  grant  that  all  these  causes  have  acted 
at  once  ;  there  is  no  doubt  that,  under  their  disastrous  influ 
ence,  the  lack  of  hands  and  the  lack  of  money,  the  net  cost 
at  first  increased  perceptibly,  and  a  considerable  number  of 
proprietors  were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  ceasing  culti 
vation.  But  in  any  case  this  excessive  rise  did  not  last 
long,  and  after  a  few  years  the  net  cost  diminished  by  de 
grees,  especially  in  the  colonies  where  the  immigration  of 
new  laborers  aroused  competition  with  the  freed  negroes. 

By  way  of  compensation  (and  herein  doubtless  lay  the 
chief  cause  of  the  distress  of  the  English  colonies)  the 
selling  price,  —  also  very  high  during  the  first  years,  as  we 
have  seen,  since  it  rose  in  1840  to  185  fr.  60  c.  per  metrical 
quintal,  a  price  which  had  not  been  reached  since  1815,  — 
the  selling  price  fell,  despite  the  progress  of  consumption, 
in  proportion  as  the  introduction  of  foreign  sugars  came  to 
compete  with  -colonial  sugars  in  the  market  of  the  mother 
country ;  the  high  prices  attracted  this  competition,  and 
the  changes  in  the  tariff  opened  the  door  to  its  admission. 
It  may  be  affirmed  that,  if  the  same  protective  tariff  had 
secured  the  sale  of  colonial  sugar  at  high  prices  a  few 
years  longer,  production  would  have  rapidly  revived,  and 
the  colonists  would  have  really  had  nothing  of  which 
to  complain. 

But  this  was  precisely  the  epoch  at  which  England  en- 
planters  to  Parliament  in  1832.  Such  was  the  position  of  affairs  under  the 
system  of  slavery,  monopoly,  and  premiums.  (Revue  coloniale,  1847,  XII.  p. 
231;  XIII.  p.  317.) 

16 


362  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

tered  upon  the  path  of  her  great  economical  reforms.  In 
studying  the  results  of  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  in 
the  English  colonies  in  the  point  of  view  of  production,  it 
is  proper  not  to  forget  these  most  important  facts,  which 
complicate  investigations. 

England  attempted  two  bold  experiments  at  the  same 
time, —  the  freedom  of  slaves  and  the  freedom  of  trade.  These 
two  kinds  of  freedom  passed  from  public  opinion  into  Par 
liament,  from  books  into  the  laws,  from  minds  into  facts, 
almost  at  the  same  moment.  It  was  from  1820  to  1831  that 
commercial  liberty  was  personified  in  Mr.  Huskisson,  and  it 
was  in  1823  that  Mr.  Buxton  made  the  first  motion  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  When,  after  the  death  of  George  IV. 
and  the  accession  of  William  IV.  (June,  1830),  Lord  Grey 
came  into  office  with  the  Whigs,  the  commercial  reform 
made  new  progress  in  1831  and  1832,  and  it  was  precisely 
in  1831  that  Mr.  Robinson,  called  to  power  by  Mr.  Canning 
with  Mr.  Huskisson,  and  become  Lord  Goderich,  proposed 
the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  belonging  to  the  crown,  and 
in  1833  Lord  Stanley  presented  the  Emancipation  Bill  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 

From  the  beginning,  the  most  ardent  partisans  of  com 
mercial  liberty  had  proposed  an  exception  in  favor  of  the 
products  of  the  colonies,  —  an  exception  justified  by  the  so 
cial  crisis  through  which  they  had  to  pass,  and  moreover  by 
the  propriety  of  not  encouraging  the  slave-trade  and  slavery, 
after  having  done  so  much  to  abolish  them.  When  a  cele 
brated  radical,  Deacon  Hume,  proposed  in  1840  an  inquiry 
upon  the  tariff's  of  importation,  he  himself  declared  that  this 
exception  was  equitable  and  necessary. 

But  the  impulse  in  favor  of  commercial  freedom  daily  be 
came  more  irresistible,  and  the  Abolitionist  opinion  itself 
was  divided.  The  question  was  indeed  curiously  compli 
cated.  Interests  were  not  less  divided  than  opinions. 

The  colonies  had  need,  on  the  one  hand,  of  commercial 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.     363 

freedom,  in  order  to  buy  at  a  lower  price  the  products  fur 
nished  them  by  England,  and,  on  the  other,  of  protection,  in 
order  to  sell  at  a  higher  price,  and  thus  indemnify  them 
selves  for  the  losses  which  had  naturally  followed  emanci 
pation. 

England  owed  protection  to  these  distant  communities 
which  it  had  just  shaken  to  the  centre,  and  at  the  same  time 
owed  cheap  living  to  its  internal  population.  It  was  asked 
wherefore  the  planters  of  Jamaica,  already  indemnified,  de 
served  more  favor  than  the  agriculturists  and  freeholders  of 
Great  Britain,  who  were  greatly  affected  by  the  corn-laws  ; 
wherefore  the  negroes  of  Barbadoes  or  Essequibo  deserved 
more  interest  than  the  indigent  laborers  of  Manchester  or 
Bolton  ;  now  the  one  needed  that  sugar  should  be  at  a  high 
price,  the  others  that  it  should  be  at  a  low  price. 

England  wished  to  multiply  exchanges,  but  it  could  not 
do  this  without  opening  its  territory  to  the  products  of  the 
entire  universe  ;  yet,  notwithstanding,  to  favor  slave  labor 
was  to  contradict  the  lofty  views  which  had  inspired  the 
great  Act  of  Emancipation. 

The  treasury,  deprived  of  considerable  revenues  by  com 
mercial  reforms,  needed  to  regain  new  resources  by  the 
increase  of  consumption  ;  but  the  ruin  of  the  colonies  men 
aced  it  on  the  other  side  with  graver  losses. 

There  was  not  a  single  one  of  the  interests  involved  in 
this  complicated  question  that  was  not  in  contradiction 
with  itself,  and  such  great  difficulties  explain  the  waverings 
of  public  opinion.  Nevertheless,  Parliament  and  public 
opinion  held  firm  ifl  the  debate  in  favor  of  the  colonies. 

When,  in  the  beginning  of  1841,  the  Whig  Cabinet  pro 
posed  to  lower  the  duty  on  foreign  sugar*  from  63s.  to  36s., 
the  committee  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Antislavery 
Society  energetically  protested  against  it,  and  demanded 
a  postponement  at  least.  The  West  India  Corporation 

*   \Ve  speak  only  of  sugar,  since  this  is  the  principal  product. 


364  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

protested  on  its  side  by  a  long  petition  ;  but  in  a  general 
convention  of  the  Abolitionists,*  on  the  14th  of  May, 
the  Assembly,  drawn  on  by  O'Connell,  loudly  declared 
that  free  labor  was  less  expensive  than  slave  labor,  that 
there  was  no  reason  to  fear  competition,  and  that,  in  the 
interest  of  emancipation  itself,  it  was  desirable  that  Great 
Britain,  in  multiplying  her  relations  with  slave  states,  should 
preserve  over  them  the  influence  of  her  policy. 

Other  orators  demanded  that  the  government  should 
reduce  the  duties  on  sugar  produced  by  free  labor,  whether 
foreign  or  colonial,  but  should  continue  to  exclude  sugar 
produced  by  servile  labor.  The  Abolitionists  were  thus 
divided  into  three  opinions  upon  the  one  question. 

The  same  dissensions  were  manifested  when  the  question 
was  carried  to  the  House  of  Commons. 

Lord  John  Kussell,  Lord  Palmerston,  Mr.  Labouchere, 
Mr.  Hume,  and  Mr.  Macaulay  sustained  the  project  of  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr.  Baring. 

Lord  John  Russell  drew  an  ingenious  parallel  between 
the  condition  of  the  freed  negroes,  numbering  5,800  small 
freeholders  at  Jamaica,  peaceable  and  happy  at  Barbadoes, 
laborious  and  moral  at  Antigua,  filling  the  churches  and 
schools  at  Guiana,  erecting  chapels  at  their  own  expense 
and  providing  for  the  wants  of  their  sick  at  Trinidad,  and 
the  wretched  life  of  the  workingmen  of  the  manufacturing 
towns  of  England,  exposed  to.  famine  or  beggaiy.  "  We 
have  done  all  that  our  generosity  permitted  us  to  do,7' 
said  he,  "  for  the  inhabitants  of  these  distant  regions.  I 
do  not  believe  that  we  are  justified  in  making  their  inter 
ests  the  object  of  our  exclusive  attention,  when  the  peo 
ple  are  suffering  in  this  country,  and  lacking  the  most 
imperative  necessaries  of  life." 

Mr.  Labouchere  showed  the  consumption  rising  or  falling 
with  the  rise  or  fall  of  prices. 

*  Abstract,  etc  ,  III.  p.  513. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.     365 

Price  of  Sugar.  Consumption. 

1836  40s.  9c7.  1 6.58  Ibs.  per  head. 

1837  34.9.  5d.  18.38 

1838  33s.  Id.  18.42 

1839  39s.  4d.  17.00 

1840  48s.  Id.  15.28 

Mr.  Hume  recalled  the  fact,  that  the  sale  of  tea  and  coffee 
had  increased  80  per  cent  in  twenty  years  (1820-1840), 
thanks  to  the  diminution  of  the  price,  while  the  consump 
tion  of  sugar  had  increased  but  15  per  cent,  by  reason  of 
the  high  price. 

Mr.  Macaulay  exclaimed  pun  gently :  "  What  sort  of  a 
principle  of  morality,  humanity,  and  justice  is  this,  which 
permits  us  to  dress  ourselves  in  the  cotton  and  inhale  the 
tobacco  produced  by  slave  labor,  and  forbids  the  addition 
of  sugar  and  coffee  arising  from  the  same  source  ? " 

11  The  Brazilian  slave/'  said  Lord  John  Kussell  before, 
"  will  find  himself  no  happier  because  the  fruit  of  his  labor 
will  be  consumed  by  Germans  instead  of  Englishmen." 

Lord  Stanley  replied,  that,  if  a  million  quintals  of  Bra 
zilian  sugar  should  take  the  place  of  a  million  quintals  of 
colonial  sugar,  foreign  slave  labor  would  be  evidently  en 
couraged,  and  English  free  labor  discouraged  ;  and  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  colonies  should  not  be  destroyed  at  the 
very  moment  when  it  was  affirmed  that  it  was  reviving. 
Sir  Eobert  Peel  won  over  the  House  by  a  speech  worthy 
of  a  statesman. 

"  I  am  concerned,'7  said  he,  "  about  the  moral  and  social 
condition  of  your  empire,  where  you  have  just  attempted 
the  greatest,  the  most  hazardous,  and,  I  admit  with  lively 
satisfaction,  the  most  happy  reform  of  which  the  civil 
ized  world  could  offer  an  example,  and  I  cannot  disguise 
from  myself  the  consequences  which  may  ensue  in  these 
countries,  still  shaken  by  so  violent  a  concussion,  from 
the  adoption  of  a  measure  which  would  be  equivalent 
to  the  impossibility  of  continuing  there  the  cultivation 
of  sugar, 


366  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

"  If  our  colonies  were  not  sufficient  for  our  supply,  we 
should  be  obliged  to  raise  the  prohibition ;  but  in  time  the  East 

Indies  will  make  up  the  deficiency  of  the  West  Indies 

But  the  East  Indies  are  in  fearful  distress,  desolated  by  fam 
ine,  pestilence,  and  want ;  wages  there  are  2^d.  per  day, 
the  laborer  lives  on  rice,  and  dies  when  rice  fails  him. 

"  Now  when  we  reflect  that  the  English  nation  is  respon 
sible  for  the  moral  and  physical  lot  of  these  populations, 
can  it  be  alleged  that  considerations  of  a  higher  order  oblige 
us  to  prefer  the  sugar  obtained  by  the  slave  labor  of  Cuba 
to  the  production  of  this  national  country,  whose  inhabit 
ants  are  dying  with  hunger  for  lack  of  work  ? 

"  You  are  told  that  it  is  necessary  to  furnish  to  free  labor 

an  occasion  of  proving  its  superiority  over  slave  labor 

But  is  this  a  moment  for  our  colonies  to  sustain  such  a 
struggle,  when  emerging  from  the  crisis  which  they  have 
just  passed  through  ? 

"  If  the  desire  of  having  cheap  sugar  leads  you  to  protect 
slave  labor,  say  so  once  for  all,  and  foreign  nations  will 
understand  you  ;  but  do  not  say  that  it  is  your  intention,  by 
admitting  products  of  this  origin,  to  destroy  the  slave-trade 
and  slavery,  for  no  one  in  the  world  will  believe  you. 

"  It  is  pretended  that  the  conduct  of  foreign  nations  does 
not  concern  us,  that  we  should  not  set  ourselves  up  as 

reformers  of  humanity I  reject  this  selfish  doctrine, 

in  the  name  of  the  nation.  We  have  dearly  bought  the 
right  to  speak  to  the  peoples  of  earth  with  authority  on 
this  question  ;  let  us  not  descend  from  the  high  position 
which  we  have  taken  in  offering  ourselves  as  an  example 
to  nations." 

The  amendment  of  Lord  Sandon  against  the  ministerial 
scheme  was  passed  May  18,  1841,  by  317  votes  against 
281,  and  the  duty  on  foreign  sugar  was  not  lowered. 

The  same  efforts  were  renewed  the  following  year,  both 
in  and  out  of  Parliament. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM..    367 

In  a  new  general  convention  of  the  Abolitionists,*  which 
held  twelve  sessions  at  London,  some  (of  whom  Mr.  Cobden 
was  one)  repeated  that,  by  diminishing  the  duties,  the  prices 
would  be  diminished,  and  the  consumption,  and  consequent 
ly  the  production,  increased.  Others  maintained  that  the 
admission  of  foreign  sugars  would  complete  the  ruin  of  the 
English  colonies,  and  encourage  servile  labor  at  Cuba  and 
Brazil. 

These  last  arguments  again  prevailed  in  Parliament  at  the 
sequel  of  two  extended  inquiries,  prescribed  by  the  two 
Houses,  f 

The  equalizing  of  the  duties  on  sugars  of  every  origin, 
demanded  by  Mr.  Ewart,  and  the  reduction  of  the  duties  on 
foreign  sugars  to  34s.  (the  colonial  sugars  paid  24s.)  pro 
posed  by  Mr.  Hawes,  and  combated  by  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
were  also  rejected  by  a  majority  of  more  than  thirty  votes. 

Notwithstanding,  the  commercial  treaty  with  Brazil,  which 
secured  to  this  country  the  treatment  of  the  most  favored 
nations,  expiring  in  November,  1844,  and  the  production 
of  the  English  colonies  reviving  but  slowly,  the  Tory  min 
istry  resolved  to  attack  Parliament  by  another  tariff  bill.J 

It  adopted  the  idea  put  forward  by  the  Abolitionists,  of 
making  a  distinction  between  free  and  servile  labor,  and 
admitting  the  products  of  the  first  while  continuing  to  ex 
clude  those  of  the  second.  From  November  1,  1844,  English 
colonial  sugars  were  to  pay  24s.  per  quintal ;  sugars  pro 
duced  by  free  labor,  34s.  ;  all  others,  63s.§ 

Defended  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  this 
tariff  was  adopted  on  the  ITth  of  June  by  a  majority  of 
twenty-two  votes. 

This  law,  logical  and  moral  in  appearance,  was  imprac- 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  p.  14. 

t  Abstract,  published  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Vol.  III. 
t  Revue,  coloniale,  1844,  III.  pp.  193,  271,  423,  547. 

§  Coffees  of  every  production  were  admitted  with  the  same  duty  (Tariff  of 
June  17,  1844). 


368  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

ticable  and  defective.  How  was  it  possible  to  distinguish 
between  certain  free  countries  and  certain  slave  countries  ? 
Java,  Siam,  Manilla,  and  China  were  pointed  out  as  the 
former  ;  *  but  a  system  of  compulsory  labor  differing  little 
from  servitude  prevails  at  Java,  while  in  China  and  Siam 
are  polygamy,  the  sale  of  children,  and  other  crimes  more 
heinous  than  slavery. 

How  refer  to  certificates  of  origin  ?  How  excommuni 
cate  sugars  and  receive  coffees  ?  The  total  consumption 
of  the  world  being  equal  to  its  total  production,  to  close 
England  to  the  sugar  of  Brazil  was  to  open  to  this  sugar 
other  markets,  to  change  the  market  and  not  the  tariff,  to 
dissatisfy  a  great  country,  and  displease  without  injuring  it. 
Lord  John  Russell  avenged  himself  for  his  defeat  of  1840 
by  heaping  censure  on  the  new  bill,  "  which, "  he  said, 
"  established  a  pulpit  in  every  custom-house,"  and  pre 
dicting  that  its  partisans  would  find  it  impossible  to  stop 
at  it,  but  would  be  forced  to  return  to  the  reduction  which 
he  had  proposed  four  years  before,  aild  even  to  exceed  this 
after  having  opposed  it. 

The  colonies  and  West  India  Corporation  complained 
by  forcible  addresses,  and  uttered  cries  of  distress  in  ad 
vance.  In  the  protest  of  Jamaica  was  remarked  the  first 
wish  for  commercial  freedom.  The  tariff  satisfied  no  one, 
and  encountered  inextricable  difficulties  in  its  application. 

On  the  14th  of  February,  1845,  Sir  Robert  Peel  proposed 
a  new  tariff,  reducing  the  duty  on  English  sugars  from 
24s.  to  14s.  for  raw  sugars,  and  from  24s.  to  16s.  for  clayed 
sugars,  and  the  duty  on  foreign  free  sugars  from  34s.  6d. 
to  23s.  4d.  for  raw  sugars,  and  from  34s.  to  28s.  for  clayed 
sugars.  This  was  a  reduction  of  from  6s.  to  10s.  on  both, 
leaving  a  differential  duty  of  from  9s.  to  11s.  in  favor  of  the 
colonies.  The  exclusion  of  slave  sugars  was  maintained. 

*  A  treaty  connected  England  with  the  United  States ;  but  it  is  known  that 
this  nation  consumes  more  than  50,000  tons  of  sugar  beyond  what  it  produces. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      369 

It  was  calculated  that  the  consumer  would  gain  16  c.  per 
pound  by  this  tariff,  and  that  the  treasury  would  lose  by  it 
32,500,000  francs.*  This  law  is  dated  March  7,  1845.  In 
the  following  three  months,  the  consumption  increased  al 
most  double,  —  an  increase  which  was  due,  moreover,  rather 
to  the  growth  of  comfort,  than  to  the  fall  or  introduction  of 
foreign  sugar  ;  for  veiy  little  was  brought  in,  the  prices 
were  maintained,  and  the  colonial  producers  profited  almost 
entirely  by  the  reduction. f  The  partisans  of  free  trade 
could  therefore  maintain,  with  s&me  reason,  that  a  larger 
reduction  might  be  attempted.  On  their  side,  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  colonies  justly  complained  of  the  continual 
changes  of  tariffs,  and  begun  to  propound  the  question  in 
its  true  terms  ;  —  either  absolute  monopoly  or  absolute 
liberty  ;  protect  our  products,  or  free  us  from  the  obligation 
of  receiving  yours. 

On  returning  to  power,  the  Whig  ministry  proposed, 
July  20,  1846, J  through  the  organ  of  Sir  John  Russell,  a 
new  tariff  on  the  following  bases  :  — 

The  maintenance  of  the  duty  of  14s.  on  English  sugars ; 

The  gradual  reduction  of  the  duty  on  foreign  sugars  ; 

The  complete  equality  of  duties  from  July  5,  1851  ; 

No  distinction  between  free  sugar  and  slave  sugar. 

This  was  an  economical  revolution  from  the  threefold 
stand-point  of  the  interest  of  the  colonies,  the  interest  of 
the  treasury,  and  the  interest  of  emancipation. 

The  new  leader  of  the  Tory  party,  Lord  George  Ben- 
tinck,  so  suddenly  restored  to  public  life,  from  which  he 
was  about  to  be  as  suddenly  snatched  by  death,  the  old 
representative  of  religious  interests,  Sir  Robert  Inglis,  and 
the  witty  and  fiery  orator,  Mr.  D'Israeli,  attg^ked  the  bill 
with  rare  vivacity  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  but  the  solid 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1845,  V.  p.  183;  VI.  p.  125. 
t   Ibid.,  1846,  VIII.  p.  294. 
J  Ibid.,  IX.  p.  280. 

16*  X 


370  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

speeches  of  Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord  Grey,  and,  above 
all,  the  imposing  and  unexpected  authority  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  in  favor  of  a  measure  entirely  different  from  the  laws 
which  he  had  himself  proposed,  carried  the  vote  by  a  ma 
jority  of. a  hundred  and  thirty  voices. 

In  the  House  of  Lords,  where  Lord  Brougham  presented 
a  petition  of  the  aged  Clarkson  against  the  law,  arid  op 
posed  it  with  the  co-operation  of  Lord  Stanley  and  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  it  was  passed  by  a  majority  of  eighteen 
voices,  through  the  infludbce  of  Lord  Clarendon. 

If  we  dare  venture  on  a  decision  among  opinions  sus 
tained  by  such  defenders,  it  seems  as  if  both  sides  were 
partly  right  and  partly  wrong. 

It  is  clear  that,  by  permitting  Cuban  and  Brazilian  sugars 
to  compete  with  the  sugars  of  the  West  Indies,  compulsory 
labor  was  encouraged  and  free  labor  discouraged. 

"  Some  three  slaves  are  employed  in  producing  a  hogs 
head  of  sugar/'  said  Sir  Robert  Inglis,  forcibly;  "  thes^ 
three  slaves  are  the  survivors  of  nine  Africans  torn  from 
their  country.  Thus,  for  every  ton  of  sugar  of  this  pro 
duction  imported  into  England,  the  House  will  have  caused 
the  capture,  massacre,  or  sufferings  of  nine  of  our  fellow- 
beings,  and  these,  multiplied  by  20,000,  the  number  of 
hogsheads  expected  to  be  imported,  produce  a  total  of 
180,000  individuals,  on  whom  a  Christian  assembly  will 
have,  in  cold  blood,  inflicted  the  greatest  possible  injury." 

"  The  nation  which  has  made  a  gift  to  humanity  of 
£  20,000,000,  will  consent,  in  pursuance  of  the  same  end, 
to  pay  a  penny  a  pound  more  for  its  sugar,  and  this  humble 
tribute  will  be  pleasing  to  God/'  exclaimed  Lord  George 
Bentinck.  Hi 

But,  to  favor  the  products  of  the  colonies,  it  was  neces 
sary  to  protect  them  by  a  high  duty  against  all  competition 
It  was  truly  chimerical  to  make  a  distinction  between  free 
sugar  and  slave  sugar,  yet  receive  cotton  from  the  United 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.     371 

States  and  copper  from  Cuba.  "  Lord  Stanley's  opinions 
on  this  matter/'  said  Lord  Clarendon,  wittily,  "  are  like  a 
thermometer  ;  they  rise  to  boiling  heat  when  sugar  from 
Cuba  is  in  question,  and  fall  te  the  freezing-point  when  the 
question  is  of  cotton  from  South  Carolina," 

If  England  had  broadly  accepted  the  principles  of  com 
mercial  freedom  at  this  very  hour,  an  exception  of  a  few 
years  in  favor  of  sugar  would  have  been  comprehensible. 
This  had  been  until  then  maintained  by  the  illustrious  pro 
moter  of  the  Corn  Laws,  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

"What!"  it  was  said,  "have  you  not  promised  that 
free  labor  should  cost  less  than  compulsory  labor?  "  "Yes/7 
replied  Lord  Brougham, "justly,  "all  circumstances  being 
equal ;  but  they  are  not  so.  Take  two  countries,  both 
placed  in  the  same  habitual  conditions  of  climate  and  ter 
ritory,  and  place  slaves  in  the  one  and  freemen  in  the  other : 
there  is  not  the  least  doubt  that  free  labor  will  stifle  slave 
labor  in  the  end,  the  freeman  laboring  with  more  interest 
and  intelligence.  But  this  is  not  the  case  here  ;  the  strug 
gle  is  between  a  country  which  possesses  free  labor,  with 
out  having  recourse  to  any  means  of  keeping  up  the  supply, 
and  another  which  employs  compulsory  labor,  renewing  it 
through  the  slave-trade." 

A  protection  continued  a  few  years  longer  would  have 
been,  therefore,  a  just  exception.  At  least,  it  would  have 
been  prudent  not  to  adopt  a  tariff  which,  through  the  differ 
ence  of  net  cost,  created  a  veritable  advantage  in  favor  of 
Brazilian  sugars.* 

But  if  the  Whig  ministry  had  decided  on  this  exception, 
the  Tory  mfl^stry,  on  returning  to  power,  would  have  over 
thrown  the  new  commercial  policy  entire  ;  it  was  better  to 
renounce  the  exception,  —  this  was  the  fear  and  the  argu 
ment  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Mr.  D'Israeli  warmly  reproached 
him  for  sacrificing  the  colonial  empire,  £  50,000,000,  the 

*  See  the  calculations  of  M.  Colqiihoun,  Revue  coloniale,  1846,  X.  p.  214. , 


372  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

most  sacred  principles,  and  his  own  convictions,  to  the  ques 
tion  as  to  who  would  be  seated  in  eight  days  on  the  minis 
terial  benches.  But  the  majority,  composed  of  the  Whigs 
and  the  wrecks  of  the  Tory  paj'ty,  followed  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

At  least  they  should  have  been  logical,  and  gone  to  the 
full  extent  of  liberty  by  breaking  the  colonial  compact.  This 
was  demanded,  in  a  sensible  and  courageous  speech,  by  a 
colonist,  M.  Bernal.  "  It  is  my  firm  design/'  said  he,  "  to 
redouble  activity  and  energy,  to  triumph  over  competition. 
The  times  and  men  belong  wholly  to  freedom  of  trade  ;  it 

is  in  vain  that  the  colonists  seek  to  resist  it But  is 

it  just  that  the  colonies,  whose  interests  are  sacrificed  to 
these  principles,  should  not  be  permitted  to  profit  by  the 
advantages  which  this  freedom  can  secure  to  them  ?  " 

From  this  day,  these  prayers  became  more  ardent  and 
more  definite  in  the  publications  of  the  colonists  and  the 
protests  of  the  colonies.*  The  unlimited  freedom  of  the 
ports,  the  full  liberty  of  immigration,  loans  for  its  encour 
agement,  the  entrance  of  the  spirituous  liquors  of  the  colo 
nies  under  the  same  duty  as  those  fabricated  in  the  mother 
country,  the  free  use  of  sugar  in  English  breweries  and  re 
fineries,  the  abolition  of  entrance  duties  on  colonial  products 
imported  into  all  other  English  possessions,  —  such  was 
thenceforth  the  programme  of  the  demands  of  the  colonies.' 

"  I  think, "  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  said,  "  that,  the  bill  once 
passed,  the  Cabinet  will  not  lose  sight  of  its  rigorous  duty 
of  furnishing  to  the  colonists  the  means  of  sustaining  the 
competition  which  has  been  aroused  against  them."  This 
counsel  was  followed. 

On  the  22d  of  January,  1847,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex 
chequer,  Mr.  Wood,  proposed  the  reduction  of  the  duty  on 
spirituous  liquors,  and  the  free  use  of  sugar  in  refineries 
instead  of  malt.f 

*  Revue  coloniale,  X.  pp.  214,  231. 

f  Ibid.,  1847,  XL  p.  75.    The  experiments  made  at  this  time  proved  that 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      373 

But  such  had  been  the  effect  of  the  sudden  reduction  of 
duties  which  unfortunately  coincided  with  a  year  of  drought, 
that  the  exportation  of  the  East  Indies  fell  from  2,911,503 
quintals  in  1845,  to  2,422,573  ;  to  this  diminution  of  500,000 
quintals  corresponded  a  fall  from  146  fr.  80  c.  to  118  fr. 
50  c.,  and  even  to  10 1  francs.  The  colonies  multiplied 
meetings,  memorials,  and  petitions  ;  the  Chamber  of  Com 
merce  of  Kingston  convoked  an  assembly  of  delegates  from 
all  the  colonies  at  %c  island  of  St.  Thomas.*  The  Gov 
ernors  called  the  attention  of  government  to  the  universal 
distress  and  alarm  of  Jhe  inhabitants.  Agitation  took  pos 
session  of  England,  and  when,  February  7, 1848,  Lord  George 
Bentinck  proposed  the  formation  of  a  committee  to  inquire 
into  the  state  of  public  opinion,  the  Cabinet  did  not  oppose 
the  proposition. 

The  committee,  by  its  report  dated  May  29,  1848,  recom 
mended  the  establishment,  for  six  years,  of  a  protective  duty 
in  favor  of  colonial  sugar. f 

Lord  John  Russell  opposed  this  project,  and,  with  a  bold 
logic,  taking  a  step  forward  towards  commercial  freedom, 
instead  of  the  step  backward  that  was  proposed,  presented 
a  bill,  which  was  adopted,  and  of  which  the  following  were 
the  bases  :  — 

1.  A  new  reduction  of  duties  on  colonial  sugars  from  24s. 
to  13s.,  and  eventually  to  10s.,  without  a  corresponding 
diminution  for  foreign  sugars.  2.  The  equality  of  duties 
for  all  sugars,  fixed  at  10s.,  from  July  1,  1854.  3.  The 
opening  of  a  loan  of  £500,000  in  favor  of  the  colonies. 

This  was  a  momentary  protection,  and  a  large  encourage 
ment  to  consumption,  ending  at  a  fixed  date  in  free  com 
petition.  The  loan  was  to  serve  thenceforth  to  favor  the 

sugar  could  be  mixed  with  malt,  or  even  combined  alone  with  hops,  without 
injuring  the  quality  of  the  beer. 

*  Revue  cotoniale,  1847,  XII.  p.  463;  1847,  XIII.  p.  335. 

f   Ibid.,  1848,  1849,  I.  p.  6. 


374  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

immigration  of  new  laborers  ;  but  immigration  by  means 
of  redemption  remained  positively  interdicted,  as  Lord 
John  Russell,  Mr.  Labouchere,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  affirmed 
with  a  common  voice. 

A  last  effort  was  attempted,  May  3,  1850,  by  the  Aboli 
tionist  party,  aided  by  the  Protectionist  party.  Sir  E. 
Buxton  proposed  to  the  House  of  Commons  to  "  declare 
that  it  was  unjust  and  impolitic  to  expose  the  sugar  of 
the  British  colonies  to  competition^with  the  sugar  of 
slave  countries." 

Mr.  Hume  proposed  to  add,  that  th^  government  "should 
put  an  end  to  the  difficulties  which  hindered  the  colonies 
from  procuring  free  laborers  in  Africa  or  elsewhere.'7 

Sir  John  Pakington  and  Mr.  Gladstone  again  maintained 
that  colonial  commerce  should  form  an  exception  to  the 
principles  of  free  exchange.  But  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  repeated  to  Mr.  Buxton,  that  all  distinction  be 
tween  the  product  of  free  labor  and  that  of  servile  labor 
was  impracticable.  He  added,  that  the  competition  of 
servile  labor  in  the  English  market  was  inconsiderable  and 
constantly  decreasing,  f 

He  showed  that,  in  spite  of  exaggerated  fears,  the  im 
portation  of  West  Indian  sugar  had  increased  enormously 
during  ten  years. J  He  congratulated  himself,  above  all, 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1850,  IV.  p.  335. 

f  1846,  1847,     Colonial  sugar       .       ' .        .        .        .     227,000  tons. 
"       "          Sugar  of  slave  countries   .        .        *. "       61,000    " 


J-tJ-xv/  —  JL«JUV/j        \^UlUllliVi    DUKCtft 

"       "         Sugar  of  slave 

countries    .         .        .          36,000     " 

1840-1844.                          1845-1849. 

Antigua  .         .         .        . 

.     177,727  quintals.         180,737  quintals. 

Barbadoes    .        .        .    .    . 

290,873         "               402,927         " 

Trinidad  . 

.     282,000         "               385,000         " 

St.  Christopher    .        .        . 

89,000 

107,000 

St.  Lucia         .        . 

.       55,000 

70,000 

Guiana         .        .        .        . 

522,000 

572,000         " 

Jamaica  .        .       v       , 

.     602,000         ' 

665,000         " 

Mauritius     .        ...•-. 

591,000 

907,000 

East  Indies 

.  3,925,000         '             5,072,000         " 

PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      375 

that  the  consumption  of  sugar  in  England  was  rising  from 
year  to  year.* 

Such  results,  and  the  general  tendency  of  politics  at  this 
moment,  left  to  the  proposition  small  chance  of  success. 
It  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  forty-one  votes. 

From  this  moment,  the  application  of  the  system  of  com 
mercial  freedom  to  the  colonies  was  irrevocably  won.  Its 
enemies  counted  vainly  on  the  return  to  public  affairs  of  a 
protectionist  minister,  who  was  assailed  with  petitions. 
Fate  decreed  that  each  of  the  ancient  adversaries  of  free 
dom  should  arrive  successively  at  power,  and  that  each 
should  make  his  retraction.  On  the  12th  of  March,  1842, 
Sir  John  Pakington,  then  Minister  of  the  Colonies,  refused 
to  discuss  a  petition  and  motion  tending  to  the  revision  of 
the  tariff  of  sugars,  f  The  most  earnest  complaints  of  the 
colonies,  arid  a  curious  petition  from  the  negroes,  com 
plaining  of  being  the  victims  of  the  legislation  of  18464 
remained  without  effect  on  Mr.  D 'Israeli.  Become  Chan 
cellor  of  the  Exchequer,  he  made,  December  3,  1852,  this 
decisive  declaration  :  §  — 

"  Since  last  year,  English  production  has  increased 
1,250,000  quintals,  and  foreign  production  has  decreased 
600,000  quintals.  Call  me  traitor,  call  me  renegade,  if  you 
will,  but  I  should  like  to  know  if  there  is  a  single  member 
of  this  assembly,  to  whatever  bench  he  may  belong,  that 
would  be  willing  to  propose  a  differential  duty  to  sustain 
a  branch  of  trade,  pretended  to  be  languishing,  which  at 
this  moment  dictates  the  law  for  the  market  of  the  mother 
country." 

*  1840       .        .        ."       .  "V   .        .  .    15  Ibs.  per  head. 

1841-1844          .        .        .        .        •        •        17  " 

1845        .     •-.,..        .        .        ..;.;.    20 

1846 ;/'  .."       21 

1847 - .  J      .     23 

1848-1849 24  " 

•f  Revue  colonials.  1863,  X.  p.  386. 

J  Ibid,  1852,  VIII.  p.  459. 

§  Ibid.,  1852,  IX.  pp   156,  310. 


376  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

Become  in  turn  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr.  Glad 
stone  replied,  April  18,  1853,  to  the  demand  for  a  reduction 
on  colonial  sugars  :  *  ''It  is  quite  impossible  for  the  gov 
ernment  to  entertain  the  slightest  hope  that  the  demand 
will  be  received." 

The  year  1852  thus  saw  all  sugars  attain  the  same  tax, 
and  all  parties  rally  to  the  same  opinion. 

Nothing  more  was  left  to  the  colonies  than  to  invoke  for 
themselves  the  principle  of  commercial  freedom,  and  to 
deal  the  last  blows  to  the  dismantled  edifrce  of  the  colonial 
compact.  Their  wishes  agreed  on  this  point  with  the  doc 
trines  of  the  free-tradists,  and  it  was  by  the  logical  coali 
tion  of  their  efforts  that,  in  June,  1849,  was  obtained  the 
repeal  of  the  Navigation  Laws,  beginning  from  January  1, 
1850.  This  most  important  measure,  almost  immediately 
adopted  by  Sweden,  Holland,  and  Belgium,  and  in  part  by 
the  United  States,  had  to  encounter  the  ardent  opposition 
of  the  ports  ;  f  but  it  resulted  in  lowering  the  freight,  and 
was  thus  a  perceptible  relief  to  the  colonies. 

Other  measures,  which  it  would  take  too  long  to  detail, 
were  taken  to  suppress  the  custom  duties  of  entry  of  the 
colonies,  and,  twenty  years  after  freedom  of  labor  had  been 
proclaimed,  freedom  of  products  and  freedom  of  transporta 
tion  appeared  as  its  result.  It  is  at  this  date  that  we 
should  take  our  stand  to  ascertain  what  has  been  the  influ 
ence  of  those  two  great  events  — the  act  of  1834  and  the 
bill  of  1846  —  on  colonial  production. 

The  progress  of  the  consumption  of  sugar  in  England 
from  1801  to  1858  was  enormous. § 

The  average  from   1801   to   1814  was  1,423,159  metrical 

*  Revue  coloniale,  1853,  X.  p.  80. 

t  Ibid.,  1851,  VI.  p.  461.  See  especially  the  speech  of  Lord  Granville,  p.  470, 
and  the  Letters  of  Mr.  Lindsay,  VII.  pp.  68,  192,  437. 

J  IRstoire  de  la  re  forme  commerciale  en  Anglelerre,  by  Henri  Richelot.  Let 
ters  of  Lord  Grey  on  the  Colonial  Policy,  Revue  coloniale,  June,  1860. 

§  Annals  of  Outside  Trade,  March,  1860,  pp.  44,  45. 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      377 

quintals,  of  51  kilogrammes.  It  rose  to  about  2,000,000 
metrical  quintals  in  the  ten  years  which  preceded  emanci 
pation  (1824-1834),  and  continued  to  stand  at  nearly  the 
same  figure  during  the  ten  years  which  followed  it  (1834- 
1844).  Under  the  influence  of  the  reduction  of  tariffs,  it 
attained  ten  years  after,  in  1854,4,166,203  metrical .  quin 
tals.  In  1859,  lastly,  it  amounted  to  4,510,000  metrical 
quintals. 

On  comparing  this  progress  with  the  growth  of  the  pop-, 
ulation,*  we  ascertain  the  average  quantity  of  sugar  con 
sumed  per  head,  which  in  1814  was  8  kilogrammes  900 
grammes,  to  be,  in  1854,  15  kilogrammes  850  grammes. f 

The  treasury  has  found  its  account  in  this  progress,  by 
reason  of  the  lowering  of  tariffs.  Instead  of  63s.  per  quar 
ter  on  foreign  sugar,  and  24s.  per  quarter  on  colonial  su 
gar,  it  now  receives  but  10s.  per  quarter,  whatever  the 
production  ;  yet  notwithstanding,  its  receipts,  the  maxi 
mum  of  which  had  been,  under  the  old  tariff,  125,000,000  fr. 
in  1828,  and  130,000,000  fr.  in  1844,  fell  below  100,000,000 
francs  after  the  reform  of  1846,  only  to  rise  again  ere 
long,  and  to  attain  153,000,000  fr.  in  1859,  a  figure  which 
it  had  never  exceeded. 

Durin"1  this  time  the  average  price  of  the  metrical      fr.     c. 

quintal,^  which  was  (including  duties)  .         .     185  60  in  1814 

had  risen  to        ,.         .         /        .         -         .         .         231     0    «    1815 

*  1814     .  .        .        .'      .        .        •     17,256,000  inhabitants. 

1858          .    '     .         .         .         •         .         •         28,681,000 

(•  The  consumption  of  tea  has  followed  a  corresponding  and  still  greater  pro 
gression.  It  was  10,678,568  kil.  in  1801.  In  1858,  it  attained  32,860,355  kil. 
The  proportion  was  0.608  kil.  per  head*  in  1801,  and  1.014  kil.  per  head  in 
1858. 

$  Price  in  entrepots :  —  fr-     c- 

1814 ....,-'.     120  40 

1824  '       .......         .     '    .         •  78  10 

1834     .         .         .         .    .    «         .         .     -    c<       .       73  70 

1844 ;4  '  .     .  83  90 

1854 4|     i>      •       53     0 

1858     •..''•' 69  50 


378  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

fr.     c. 

and  stood  afterwards  at    .         .        .        .     \  .        .     166     0  in  1825 

134  30  "  1835 

146  80  "  1845 

This  same  price  fell,  after  the  reforms,  to          .         .       85  40  "  1848 

and  even  reached  the  minimum  of        ...         .  79  50  "  1853 

to  remain  a  very  little  time  under  100  fr.,  standing  at     103  10  "  1858 

Thus,  in  England,  all  have  been  gainers  ;  first,  the  con 
sumer,  then  even  the  treasury.*  The  producer  has  also 
been  the  gainer,  since  he  receives  a  less  profit,  but  on  a 
greater  quantity  and  with  a  lower  duty. 

But  what  producer  has  profited  by  this  progress  ?  Is  it 
not  the  foreign  producer  ?  Has  not  the  colonial  producer 
been  sacrificed  to  him  ? 

The  answer  requires  that,  instead  of  considering  the  quan 
tities  consumed,  we  should  take  account  of  the  quantities 
imported,  both  for  consumption  and  for  re-exportation,  and 
that  we  should  distinguish  between  the  different  produc 
tions,  f 

Doubtless  foreign  sugar  has  the  largest  share  in  the 
growth  of  consumption  in  England,  and  how  can  we  be 
surprised  at  it,  since  the  almost  prohibitive  impost  which 
burdened  it  has  been  lowered  from  63s.  to  10s.  per  quar 
ter  ?  Until  the  first  reduction,  the  importation  of  foreign 

*  . 

*  The  custom-house  system  of  England  is  so  well  combined,  and  wealth  is 
so  widely  diffused  in  this  country,  that  the  revenue  of  the  customs  attained 
626,000,000  fr.  in  1859;  and  of  this  amount,  four  articles  of  luxury  —  sugar, 
tea,  tobacco,  and  wine — produced  more  than  five  sixths,  the  rest  not  exceeding 
89,000,000  fr. 

Sugar      .       ...        .    » .  ...   •  -  .'       .    153,000,000  fr. 
Tea      .    ;.  •„  •  •;  .        .        .  '    ".    ,    .      " ..       135,000,000 
Tobacco  .        .        ..."      .        .        .     139,000,000 
Wines  and  brandies    .        .        .        .        .        110,000,000 

Total      .        ...        .     537,000  000  fr. 

f  We  borrow  these  figures  from  the  remarkable  work  of  Henri  Richelot, 
Histoire  de  la  reforme  commerciale  en  Angleterre,  Vol.  II.  pp.  484,  485.  The 
author  has  been  kind  enough  to  communicate  to  us  the  unpublished  statistics 
which  complete  his  tables  for  the  years  prior  to  1851.  (See  Appendix.) 


PRODUCTION,  THE  SUGAR  LAW,  COMMERCIAL  FREEDOM.      379 

sugar,  despite  the  abolition  of  slavery,  despite  the  progress 
of  the  population  and  of  consumption,  made  but  slow  pro 
gress.  In  1831,  it  was  507,547  quintals  ;  in  1835,  it  fell 
below  200,000,  and  rose  again  to  777,900  quintals  in 
1844.  After  the  reform  of  1846,  the  importation  of  for 
eign  sugar  attained,  in  1847,  2,408,981  quintals,  fell  back 
in  1852  to  1,058,961  quintals,  but  to  double,  then  triple, 
and  amount  in  1858  to  3,630,915  quintals,  more  than  seven 
times  the  figure  of  1831. 

The  progress  of  the  East  Indies  has  been  almost  as 
rapid.  They  represented  but  296,679  quintals  in  1837,  and 
amounted  to  1,585,430  quintals  in  1851,  the  amount  having 
more  than  quintupled.  The  quantity  has  diminished  under 
the  influence  of  the  recent  events,  but  was  still  1,181,368 
quintals  in  1857,  and  794,309'  quintals  in  1858. 

We  find  the  same  progress  in  the  island  of  Mauritius. 
Its  production  did  not  much  exceed  500,000  quintals  before 
emancipation  ;  ten  years  after  (1844)  it  was  the  same  ;  ten 
years  later  (1854)  it  amounted  to  1,662,190  quintals,  hav 
ing  tripled ;  since  diminished,  it  remains  above  1,000,000 
quintals.  «  ; 

As  to  Guiana  and  the  Antilles,  as  we  have  already  said, 
the  decrease  of  production,  by  reason  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  was  from  one  fourth  to  one  half  during  the  first  ten 
years  ;  but  it  had  already  so  far  revived  at  the  end  of  this 
period,  as  to  give  serious  reason  to  hope  a  speedy  return  to 
the  former  figure,  when  the  tariff  reform  intervened. 

In  fact,  the  production  in  1834  was  3,844,243  quintals  ;  it 
had  risen  in  1845  to  2,854,010  quintals.  At  the  same  time, 
the  price  which  was,  including  duty,  134  fr.  30  c.  in  1834, 
rose  to  143  fr.,  162  fr.,  167  fr.,  even  to  185  fr.  60  c.  during  the 
first  years,  and  was  still  146  fr.  40  c.  in  1845  ;  so  that  the 
producers  received  more  for  a  less  quantity.  The  larger 
introduction  of  foreign  sugar  caused  the  importation  to  fall 
again  in  1846  to  2,147,363  fr.  ;  and  it  may  be  affirmed  that, 


380  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

by  not  continuing  a  necessary  protection  a  few  years  longer, 
the  English  government  arrested  the  serious  tendency  to 
revival  of  colonial  business.  Notwithstanding,  the  com 
plaints  were  exaggerated,  for  the  production  speedily  re 
turned  to  the  figures  of  1845,  and  higher.  In  1847  it  rose 
again  to  3,199,821  quintals,  attained  3,795,311  in  1848, 
and,  remaining  nearly  at  the  same  level,  was  still  3,499,171 
quintals  in  1858.  Let  us  remember  that  the  average  was 
3,640,712  quintals  from  1814  to  1834;  this  is  nearly  the 
same  figure. 

It  would  be  well  to  distinguish  one  by  one  the  importa 
tions  of  the  nineteen  colonies  ;  but,  since  1852,  the  official 
tables  of  English  commerce  make  no  distinction  of  the  share 
of  the  different  West  India  islands  in  the  general  importa 
tion,  only  separating  Guiana  and  the  West  Indies. 

Now  the  statistics  of  1852  still  presented^  a  great  diminu 
tion  at  Jamaica.  Guiana  rose  towards  the  figures  anterior 
to  1834,  and  attained  them  in  1854.  The  increase  was  not 
able  at  Barbadoes  and  Trinidad  ;  at  Antigua,  St.  Vincent, 
and  Grenada  there  was  almost  a  parity  between  the  two 
epochs  ;  and  the  importation  had  ^increased,  taken  as  a 
whole,  in  the  other  small  West-Indian  possessions.  (See 
the  detailed  table  in  the  Appendix.) 

In  twenty-five  years,  the  English  colonies,  after  two  or 
deals  as  grave  as  the  abolition  of  compulsory  labor  and  that 
of  the  protective  tariff,  have  returned  to  nearly  the  exact 
statistics  of  their  production  before  these  two  ordeals. 
The  first  diminished  the  quantity  produced,  but  raised  the 
price  ;  the  second  increased  the  quantity  produced,  but  di 
minished  the  price.  The  second  injured  the  colonies  more 
than  the  first ;  but,  without  separating  them,  who  could  have 
believed  in  good  faith  that  two  such  radical  attempts  would' 
not  have  cost  more  dearly  ? 


CHAPTER    IV. 

RESUME. 

DURING  the  years  which  separated  emancipation  in  the 
English  possession's  from  emancipation  in  the  colonies  of 
France,  the  advocates  of  these  colonies  did  not  cease  to 
repeat,  some  that  England  had  acted  from  a  selfish  motive, 
in  order 'to  ruin  all  the  other  colonies  by  excluding  their  pro 
ducts  from  her  market ;  others,  that  this  great  experiment 
had  ended  in  failure.  These  two  assertions,  which  mutually 
refute  each  other,  are  repeated  to  satiety  in  the  United 
States  ;  they  are  the  commonplaces  of  every  speech  in 
favor  of  slavery. 

The  first  is  unjust,  the  second  incorrect.  It  is  by  a  voice 
from  the  United  States  that  England  has  been  most  elo 
quently  avenged  for  the  reproach  of  selfishness. 

"  Other  nations/7  exclaims  Channing,  in  his  admirable 
Letter  to  Clay  (August  1,  1837)  on  the  Annexation  of 
Texas,  "have  acquired  immortal  glory  by  the  heroic 
defence  of  their  rights  ;  but  there  never  before  has  been  an 
example  of  a  nation  which,  disinterestedly,  and  in  the  midst 
of  the  greatest  obstacles,  has  espoused  the  rights  of  others, 
the  rights  of  those  whose  only  claim  was  that  of  also  being 
men,  the  rights  of  the  most  fallen  of  the  human  race. 
Great  Britain,  under  the  weight  of  an  unparalleled  debt, 
with  overwhelming  taxes,  has  contracted  a  new  debt  of 
$  100,000,000  to  give  liberty,  not  to  Englishmen,  but  to 
degraded  Africans.  This  was  not  an  act  of  policy,  it  was 
not  the  work  of  statesmen.  Parliament  has  done  nothing 


382  TIIK  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

tut  to  record  the  edict  of  the  people.  The  English  naiton, 
with  one  heart  and  one  voice,  under  a  powerful  Christian 
impulse,  and  without  distinction  of  rank,  sex,  party,  or 
communion,  has  decreed  the  freedom  of  the  slave.  I  know 
of  no  more  sublime,  more  disinterested  act  related  in  his 
tory.  In  the  course  of  ages,  the  maritime  triumphs  of 
England  will  occupy  a  narrower  and  narrower  place  in  the 
annals  of  humanity.  This  moral  triumph  will  fill  a  broader 
and  more  brilliant  page." 

Let  us  repeat  it,  to  the  eternal  glory  of  England,  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  was  not  a  calculation,  neither  has  it  been  a 
failure. 

A  social  revolution  has  been  attempted  at  once  in  nine 
teen  countries,  dispersed  between  the  Caribbean  Sea,  the 
southern  extremity  of  Africa,  and  the  entrance  to  the  Indian 
Ocean,  having  neither  the  same  climate,  nor  the  same  insti 
tutions,  nor  the  same  social  state,  and  placed  many  thou 
sand  leagues  from  the  handful  of  legislators  who  wrote  their 
fate  in  a  daring  law.  In  the  most  extended  of  these  coun 
tries,  Jamaica,  300,000  slaves  were  face  to  face  with  35,000 
whites.  Since  the  commencement  of  this  century,  five  for 
midable  insurrections  had  spread  incendiarism  and  slaugh 
ter,  the  last  of  which,  only  two  years  before  emancipation, 
had  been  followed  by  the  execution  of  more  than  five  hun 
dred  negroes.  Another,  Guiana,  occupied  by  only  16,000 
whites,  offered  6,400  square  miles  as  a  refuge  to  more  than 
80,000  negroes.  "  This  event,  so  formidable  at  first  sight," 
wrote  M.  de  Broglie,*  and  we  can  repeat  it  seventeen  years 
after  him,  "  the  summons  to  freedom  of  800,000  slaves  on 
the  same  day,  at  the  same  moment,  has  not  caused  in  all 
the  English  colonies  the  tenth  part  of  the  disturbance  ordi 
narily  caused  among  the  most  civilized  nations  of  Europe 
by  the  smallest  political  question  that  agitates  minds  ever 
so  little." 

*  Eeport,  p.  8. 


RESUME.  383 

The  harm  produced  by  emancipation  is  reduced  to  the 
incontestable  ruin  of  a  certain  number  of  colonists,  and 
the  momentary  and  inevitable  suffering  of  all.  It  is  wor 
thy  of  note  that  the  colony  which  resisted  most,  Jamaica, 
suffered  most.  The  colony  which  most  promptly  resigned 
itself,  and  made  efforts  to  renew  the  methods,  stock,  and 
personnel  of  manufacture  —  Mauritius  —  scarcely  suffered 
at  all,  and  its  wealth  is  to-day  doubled,  nearly  tripled. 
The  aggregate  production  of  the  other  colonies  has  again 
reached  the  amount  prior  to  1834.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  it  would  have  surpassed  it  if  the  commercial  re 
form  had  not  complicated  the  results  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery. 

But,  while  according  to  these  evils  the  regret  which  they 
deserve,  how  compare  them  for  an  instant  with  the  blessings 
which  date  from  these  two  great  measures  for  England,  for 
the  colonies  themselves,  and  for  humanity  ? 

Nearly  a  million  of  men,  women,  and  children  have 
passed  from  the  condition  of  cattle  to  the  rank  of  rational 
beings.  Numerous  marriages  have  elevated  the  family 
above  the  mire  of  a  nameless  promiscuousness.  Paternity 
has  replaced  illegitimacy.  Churches  ancl  schools  are 
opened.  Religion,  before  mute,  factious,  or  dishonored,  has 
resumed  its  dignity  and  liberty.  Men  who  had  nothing 
have  acquired  property  ;  lands  which  were  waste  have  been 
occupied ;  inadequate  populations  have  increased  ;  detest 
able  processes  of  culture  and  manufacture  have  been  re 
placed  by  better;*  a  race  reputed  inferior,  vicious,  cruel, 


*  We  speak  of  the  progress  which  was  not  entered  upon  before  emancipa 
tion,  —  the  substitution  of  the  plough  for  the  hoe,  the  use  of  the  harrow,  the 
importation  of  machinery,  the  improvement  in  the  planting  of  the  cane,  central 
mills,  lastly,  the  surveying  or  laying  down  of  railroads  at  Jamaica,  Guiana, 
Barbadoes,  and  Trinidad.  "  The  advantages  resulting  from  the  use  of  agricul 
tural  implements  are  incalculable,"  was  written  from  Antigua  in  1845.  "  The 
colony  has  already,  this  year,  with  less  than  10,000  hands,  gathered  crops  almost 
equal  to  those  for  which  Bourbon  has  employed  30,000,000  laborers."  —  Htvue 


384  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

lascivious,  idle,  refractory  to  civilization,  religion,  and  in 
struction,  has  shown  itself  honest,  gentle,  disposed  to  fam 
ily  life,  accessible  to  Christianity,  eager  for  instruction. 
Those  of  its  members  who  have  returned  to  vagrancy, 
sloth,  and  corruption  are  not  a  reproach  to  their  race  as 
much  as  to  the  servitude  which  had  left  them  wallowing  in 
their  native  ignorance  and  depravity  ;  but  these  are  the 
minority.  The  majority  labor,  and  show  themselves  far 
superior  to  the  auxiliaries  which  China  and  India  sends  to 
the  colonists.  In  two  words,  wealth  has  suffered  little,  civ 
ilization  has  gained  much  ;  such  is  the  balance-sheet  of  the 
English  experiment. 

By  an  indirect  effect  of  the  same  event,  the  colonial  poli 
cy  is  wholly  transformed.  The  first  statesmen  of  England 
have  changed  their  opinion  on  the  utility  of  the  colonies 
and  the  manner  of  governing  them.  The  freedom  of  labor 
has  been  followed  by  freedom  of  trade,  and  even  by  political 
freedom.  Of  all  the  reasons  which  caused  the  settlement 
of  the  colonies,  —  gold,  the  shipping,  commerce,  power,  — 
a  single  one  subsists,  or  at  least  prevails,  —  the  interest  of 
civilization.  The  colonies  were  destined  for  the  wealth, 
they  serve  above  all  the  greatness,  of  the  mother  country. 

To  whom  reverts  the  honor  of  having  abolished  slavery 
in  the  English  colonies  ? 

The  government,  the  different  ministers,  without  distinc 
tion  of  party,  did  much.  They  may  be  reproached  with 
two  mistakes,  —  they  did  not  take  effective  measures  to  se 
cure  labor  during  the  first  years  ;  they  did  not  continue 
long  enough  the  protection  necessary  to  colonial  products  ; 
but  they  accorded  a  large  indemnity,  they  facilitated  credit, 
they  kept  a  firm  hand  over  immigration,  that  it  should  not 
degenerate  into  a  new  slave-trade  ;  above  all,  they  sent  to 

coloniale,  1845,  p.  433.  Similar  facts  have  been  pointed  out  in  almost  all  the 
reports  of  the  Governors  to  the  English  government.  But  it  is  necessary  to 
be  brief. 


RESUME.  385 

the  colonies  firm,  conciliating,  capable,  arid  upright  Gov 
ernors,  a  Marquis  of  Sligo,  a  Carmichael  Smyth,  a  Nicolay, 
an  Elgin,  worthy  representatives  of  the  Goderiches,  the 
Glenelgs,  the  Stanleys,  and  the  Greys. 

But  listen  to  this  solemn  testimony  of  the  Duke  de  Brog- 
lie  :  *  - 

"  We  do  too  much  honor,  in  fact,  to  the  English  govern 
ment,  and  we  would  wrong  her  too  much,  in  attributing  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade  and  the  abolition  of  slavery  on 
her  part  either  to  lofty  views  of  wisdom  and  foresight  or  to 
Machiavellian  combinations  ;  on  this  point,  the  English  gov 
ernment  has  neither  gone  in  advance  of  the  times  nor  di 
rected  events  ;  it  has  limited  itself  to  maintaining  the  statu 
quo,  so  long  as  it  has  not  been  forced  from  it ;  it  has  re 
sisted  for  fifteen  years  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  for 
twenty-five  years  the  abolition  of  slavery ;  it  has  defended 
all  the  intermediate  positions  step  by  step,  and  has  only 
yielded,  in  each  occasion,  to  necessity. 

"We  would  also  do  too  much  honor  to  the  philosophy 
and  philanthropy  of  England  in  assigning  them  the  chief 
part  in  this  great  enterprise.  Philosophers  and  philanthro 
pists  have,  doubtlessly,  figured  gloriously  in  the  number 
of  the  combatants ;  but  it  is  the  religious  spirit  which  has 
borne  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day,  and  it  is  to  this  that 
reverts,  before  everything,  the  honor  of  success.  It  is  re 
ligion  that  has  truly  freed  the  negroes  in  the  English  colonies  ; 
it  is  this  which  raised  up,  in  the  beginning  of  the  strug 
gle,  the  Clarksons,  the  Wilberforces,  Granville  Sharps, 
and  so  many  others,  and  armed  them  with  indomitable 
courage  and  unshaken  perseverance  ;  it  is  religion  which 
has  progressively  formed,  first  in  the  nation,  then  in  Par 
liament  itself,  that  great  Abolition  party  which  goes  on 
swelling  from  day  to  day,  infiltrating  itself,  as  it  were,  into 
all  parties,  calling  them  all,  and  the  government  first  of  all, 

*  Report,  p.  117. 
17  Y 


386  THE   ENGLISH  COLONIES. 

to  account ;  and  it  is  this  party  which,  profiting  during 
forty  years  by  every  event  and  every  circumstance,  succes 
sively  carried  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  in  180T  ;  in 
spired  through  its  representatives,  in  1815,  the  declarations 
of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  later  those  of  the  Congress 
of  Yerona ;  dictated  in  1823  the  motion  of  Mr.  Buxton, 
the  resolutions  of  Mr.  Canning,  and  the  circular  of  Lord 
Bathurst ;  hurled  in  1831  on  the  colonies  the  Order  in  Coun 
cil  of  November  2,  thus  rendering  the  abolition  of  slavery 
inevitable  in  1832,  and  the  maintenance  of  apprenticeship 
impossible  in  1838 

"  The  Abolition  party  has  been  no  more  sparing  of  pains 
in  the  colonies  than  in  the  mother  country  ;  it  has  covered 
them  with  churches,  chapels,  missions,  and  congregations, 
belonging  to  all  of  the  dissenting  sects  of  England,  thus  ex 
citing  a  salutary  emulation  in  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church.  In  laboring  to  render  emancipation  necessary  at 
London,  it  has  labored  to  render  it  possible  and  easy  in 
the  West  Indies  ;  it  has  prepared  the  way,  cleared  and 
ploughed  the  soil,  put  aside  or  surmounted  the  obstacles. 
Ministers  of  the  Established  Church,  Methodists  of  all  sects, 
Presbyterians,  Moravians,  missionaries  of  the  Society  of 
London,  priests  of  the  Catholic  Church,  Baptist  mission 
aries,  all  vying  with  each  other,  have  penetrated  into  the 
workshops,  bearing  to  the  negroes  the  light  and  consolation 
of  the  Gospel,  admitting  to  their  various  communions  the 
different  quarters  of  their  respective  abodes,  placing  them 
selves  face  to  face  with  the  masters  as  the  protectors  of 
the  slaves,  face  to  face  with  the  civil  authorities  as  interces 
sors  for  this  oppressed  class,  and  becoming  by  this  means 
the  masters  of  hearts,  the  arbiters  of  wishes,  and  the  true 
guardians  of  the  public  order. 

"  There  happens  thus,  in  the  English  colonies,  something 
analogous  to  what  happened  formerly  in  the  Roman  empire, 
when  this  empire  was  marching  with  giant  strides  towards 


RESUME.  387 

its  decline.  Above  a  narrow,  antiquated,  oppressive  com 
munity,  constituted  solely  for  the  profit  of  the  ruling  class, 
ha3  been  formed,  by  the  cares  and  under  the  protection  of 
the  ministers  of  religion,  a  Christian  community,  composed 
solely  of  the  weak,  the  poor,  and  the  oppressed  ;  a  com 
munity  still  ignorant,  but  progressive,  and  which  was  found 
standing,  when  the  hour  of  affranchisement  sounded,  ready 
to  fall  into  its  ranks,  and  recognize  the  voice  of  its  leaders." 

But  how  have  religious  men  set  to  work  to  win  so  mag 
nificent  a  victory  ?  I  will  leave  the  answer  to  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  soldiers  of  the  same  cause  in  France,  Count 
de  Montalembert. 

"  Cast  a  glance  on  the  immortal  lessons  given  us  by 
England  !  See  these  four  victories,  as  difficult  as  legiti 
mate,  which  have  been  won  there  in  less  than  twenty  years, 
without  revolution,  without  subversion,  without  costing  a 
single  drop  of  blood,  without  causing  any  other  tears  than 
those  of  joy  to  flow,  solely  by  the  natural  working  of  those 
admirable  institutions  which  we  possess  in  part,  although 
we  know  riot  how  to  use  them. 

"  These  four  victories  are  :  — 

"  1.    Catholic  Emancipation  (1829)  ; 

"  2.    Parliamentary  Reform  (1830)  ; 

"  3.    The  Abolition  of  Slavery  (1833)  ; 

"4.    Freedom  of  the  Corn  Trade  (1846). 

"Let  it  be  remarked,  that  none  of  these  pacific  victories, 
which  we  point  out  with  envy  and  admiration  to  our  fellow- 
citizens,  has  inflicted  excessive  or  lasting  injury  on  the  van 
quished  cause.  The  Anglican  Church  has  regained  new 
life  since  Catholic  emancipation  ;  the  aristocracy  has  risen 
up  more  strongly  than  ever  since  the  abolition  of  the  rotten 
boroughs,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  English  agriculture  will 
lose  nothing  by  the  abolition  of  its  monopoly  ;  in  ten  years, 
no  one  will  doubt  it.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  lawful  and 
pure  victories  not  to  drive  to  despair,  not  to  crush,  not 
even  to  humiliate  the  vanquished. 


388  THE  ENGLISH   COLONIES. 

"  Admire,  above  all,  the  peaceful  and  sublime  memory  of 
the  abolition  of  colonial  slavery.  Therein  was  at  stake  only 
a  great  moral  interest,  a  reform  to  be  won  slowly  and 
laboriously  over  the  most  deeply-rooted  habits  and  invet 
erate  prejudices: — it  has  triumphed.  Far  from  bringing 
back  any  material  profit,  this  reparation  of  the  greatest 
of  iniquities  was  to  cost  the  English  nation  £  20,000,000  as 
an  indemnity  to  the  owners  of  the  negro  slaves: — it  has 
been  paid.  The  first  authors  of  this  great  reparation  have 
had  to  struggle,  not  only  against  routine,  but  also  against 
politics,  against  commerce,  against  the  merchant-shipping, 
against  the  arts  and  manufactures,  against  all  the  most 
powerful  elements  of  British  greatness: — they  have  con 
quered  them.  They  have  had  to  oppose  to  all  these  united 
forces  only  the  single  force  of  moral  and  religious  senti 
ment: —  it  has  sufficed.  They  have  never  recoiled,  never 
doubted  themselves  ;  and,  after  thirty  years  of  labor,  dis 
appointments,  and  calumnies,  on  the  day  fixed  by  the  eter 
nal  decrees,  God  has  crowned  them  with  success,  and  with 
a  glory  so  pure  and  beautiful,  that  iny  French  and  Catholic 
heart  cannot  console  itself  for  seeing  it  snatched  from 
France  and  the  Church." 

Can  there  be  a  lesson  more  sublime,  and  better  worth 
remembrance  ?  Ah,  may  we  never  forget  it !  What  power 
destroyed  slavery  in  England  ?  Religion.  By  the  aid  of 
what  weapon  ?  Liberty. 


BOOK  THIRD. 

COLONIES  OF  DENMARK,  SWEDEN,  AND  HOLLAND. 


I.    DANISH   COLONIES. 

DENMARK  possesses  three  islands  in  the  West  Indies  : 
St.  Croix,  purchased  of  France,  in  1733,  for  738,000  livres, 
and   which   has   two   cities,   Christianstadt    and  Frederick- 

stadt  ; 

St.  John,  occupied  by  the  Danes  in  1687  ; 

St.  Thomas,  which  has  no  other  important  feature  than 
its  French  port. 

Fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  English  in  1807  and  1808, 
they  were  restored  to  Denmark  by  the  peace  of  1814. 

St.  Croix  possessed  in  1835,  according  to  an  official  cen 
sus,  161  plantations,  142  sugar-mills,  and  19  provision  ware 
houses,  and  was  peopled  by  26,681  inhabitants,  of  whom 
6,805  were  free  (1,800  Europeans),  19,876  slaves. 

'  St.  Thomas  numbered  22  plantations,  and  14,022  inhabit 
ants,  of  which  8,707  were  free  (5,315  Europeans),  5,315 
slaves;  St.  John,  2,475  inhabitants,  of  which  532  were 
free  (107  Europeans),  1,943  slaves. 

There  was,  therefore,  a  total  of  43,178  inhabitants,  16,03L 
freemen  against  27,144  slaves.* 

This  population  is  divided  into  seven  creeds :  the  Catho 
lic,  which  embraces  about  13,000  souls  ;  the  Lutheran,  the 
religion  of  the  state,  which  numbers  but  about  6,000  ;  the 


*  Revue  coloniale,  1843,  pp.  291,  495 ;  1845,  p.  257 ;  1846,  p.  209 ;  1847,  p.  U3  ; 
Ici8,  pp.  157,  422. 


390  DANISH  COLONIES. 

Anglican  Church,  10,000;  the  Moravians,  10,000;  the  Cal- 
vinists,  Methodists,  and  Jews,  which  share  the  remainder. 

The  decay  of  the  Danish  colonies,  the  ruin  of  the  colo 
nists,  and  the  sufferings  of  the  slave  population,  made 
lamentable  progress  subsequently  to  1814. 

A  general  officer  of  the  Danish  Marine,  M.  Dahlerup,  de 
spatched  by  his  government  in  1841,  declared  that  at  St. 
Croix  sixty  plantations  had  been  abandoned  to  the  state  for 
lack  of  being  able  to  repay  its  advances.  Heavy  mort 
gages  burdened  the  greater  portion  of  the  other  plantations. 
At  the  same  epoch,  the  Fcederlandet  journal  affirmed  that, 
of  151  plantations,  76  belonged  to  non-residents  of  the  col 
ony,  that  16  had  reverted  to  the  state,  and  that  60  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  creditors.  The  mortality  increased 
grievously.  From  1807  to  1815,  7,000  individuals  out  of 
26,000  had  died,  and  the  deaths  almost  every  year  exceeded 
the  births.  It  was  the  same  at  St.  John.  This  result  was 
due  in  part  to  the  extinction  of  family  feelings  in  the  heart 
of  the  slaves,  who  took  no  care  of  the  aged  and  children, 
and  in  part  to  the  excessive  labors  with  which  they  were 
overburdened,  despite  the  regulations  decreed  in  1810,  Jbut 
rarely  executed.  The  slaves  made  the  most  desperate  ef 
forts  to  escape. 

The  exportation  of  sugar  from  St.  Croix  had  not  dimin 
ished  with  the  number  of  the  population,  which  proves  that 
the  labor  imposed  on  the  slaves  had  increased  :  — 

1815-1824  (ten  years)     ....     25,400,000  Ibs. 
1825-1833  (nine  years)        .         .         .         24,100,000 
1834-1841  (eight  years)  .         .         .         .     21,400,000 

The  culture  of  sugar,  moreover,  became  daily  less  pro 
ductive,  on  account  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  which  is 
remarked  in  all  slave  countries. 

Happily,  the  Danish  government,  still  inspired  by  the 
generous  spirit  which  procured  Christian  VII.  the  honor  of 
being  the  first  sovereign  of  Europe  to  abolish  the  slave-trade 


DANISH   COLONIES. 


391 


(Ordinance  of  March  16, 1792),  early  resolved  to  pave  the  way 
for  emancipation  arid  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  slaves, 
as  it  had  reserved  itself  the  right  to  do,  shortly  after  the  cap 
ture  of  St.  Croix,  by  a  royal  edict  dated  February  3,  1155. 

More  happily  still,  it  found  in  Major-Gcneral  Van  Scholtcn, 
Governor-General  of  the  Danish  West  Indies,  an  intelligent 
and  resolute  man,  who,  by  a  wise  and  firm  guidance,  knew 
how  to  pave  the  way  for  and  hasten  the  hour  of  freedom. 

Until  1845,  the  measures  taken  were  in  view  of  amelio 
rating  the  condition  of  the  slaves.  From  this  epoch,  which 
was  that  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  England,  all  the 
measures  tended  undeviatingly  to  emancipation.  It  was 
hoped  at  first  to  succeed  in  it  by  degrees  through  partial 
emancipation,  and  a  royal  rescript,  dated  November  22, 1834, 
commanded  the  government  to  establish  obligatory  redemp 
tion  and  the  legal  right  of  slaves  to  acquire  property,  to 
interdict  the  public  sale  of  slaves  and  the  separation  of  chil 
dren,  at  an  early  age,  from  their  parents,  to  constitute  an 
exceptional  jurisdiction  for  disputes  between  masters  and 
slaves,  and  to  frame  a  statute  on  Ibe  labor,  maintenance, 
and  discipline  of  slaves,  and  another  on  vagrancy. 

During  this  time,  the  Danish  government  negotiated  with 
England,  with  a  view  to  obtaining  lower  duties  after  eman 
cipation  on  the  importation  of  the  sugars  of  its  colonies. 

Surrounding  himself  with  committees  chosen  from  among 
the  most  honorable  planters,  the  Governor-General  put  into 
execution  all  the  orders  which  were  intrusted  him.  Ob 
ligatory  redemption  was  established,  dating  from  November 
22,  1834.  A  general  regulation  of  May  7, 1838,  determined 
the  hours  of  labor,  the  discipline  to  be  exercised  in  it,  and 
the  cares  due  the  slaves,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to 
regulate  the  food,  lodging,  and  holidays.  The  words  not  free 
thenceforth  replaced  that  of  slave.  The  government  coun 
cil  was  placed  in  possession  of  the  special  jurisdiction.  The 
observance  of  Sunday  was  imposed  (December  20,  1836). 


392  DANISH  COLONIES. 

An  ordinance  on  vagrancy,  and  the  institution  of  a  house  of 
correction,  appeared  May  10,  1838  ;  ten  days  previously, 
another  ordinance  had  prohibited  the  sale  of  slaves  in  the 
public  markets.  Eight  schools  were  established,  and  the 
co-operation  of  the  different  clergy  in  the  work  of  moral 
education  was  warmly  sought. 

A  statute  of  May  1,  1840,  ratified  the  most  important  of 
these  provisions,  —  a  statute  remarkable  in  two  points  of 
view. 

Animated  by  the  best  intentions  towards  the  slaves,  it 
nevertheless  still  authorized  the  punishment  of  the  lash, 
even  inflicted  upon  women,  while  abolishing  "  blows  with 
the  tamarind  or  any  other  tree  upon  the  naked  body  " 
(Art.  11)  ;  and  the  punishment  of  solitary  imprisonment 
on  bread  and  water,  but  for  forty-eight  hours  at  most. 
Sad  vestiges  reproaching  the  abominations  of  the  former 
system  ! 

It  approved  the  minute  regulations  made  concerning  the 
height  of  the  cabins,  the  hour  of  opening  the  mills,  the 
ringing  of  bells  for  rising  and  for  ineals,  the.  driving  of 
the  mules,  the  cutting  of  grass,  the  length  of  the  stick  of 
the  driver,  the  furnishing  of  cats-o' -nine- tails  by  the  police- 
officers  at  a  suitable  price.  Thus,  to  intervene  in  all  cases 
where  abuses  could  creep  in,  regulations  must  intervene 
in  everything  ;  they  must  anticipate  everything ;  the  mas 
ters  in  turn  become  the  real  slaves  ;  the  law  is  everywhere 
master,  where  it  is  not  everywhere  violated.  An  exact 
type,  borrowed  from  the  system  of  slavery,  of  what  would 
be  the  pretended  universal  foresight  of  the  system  of  so 
cialism  ! 

It  may  be  thought  that  it  would  have  been  simpler  to 
leave  all  this  to  the  good-will  and  well  understood  interests 
of  the  colonists.  Was  this  possible  ?  We  are  about  to 
judge. 

The  government,  forbearing  to  make  any  decision  on  the 


DANISH  COLONIES.  393 

concession  of  a  free  day  to  the  slaves,  had  commissioned 
the  Governor  to  make  arrangements  in  this  respect  with  the 
planters. 

At  St.  John,  the  latter  consented  with  tolerable  willing 
ness.  The  planters  of  St.  Thomas  refused  all  concession. 
Lastly,  at  St.  Croix,  63  plantations,  employing  6,801  slaves, 
resisted.  Happily,  the  crown  possessed  16  plantations ; 
81  belonged  to  Englishmen  ;  a  majority  could,  therefore,  be 
formed,  and  98  plantations,  employing  10,023  slaves,  ad 
hered  to  the  proposition  of  the  Governor.  A  compromise 
measure  was  proposed,  and  sanctioned  by  the  statute  of 
March  23,  1844,  prescribing  the  observance  of  Sunday, 
according  Saturday  to  the  slaves,  releasing  the  masters 
from  a  poll-tax,  and  developing  the  schools. 

On  the  same  occasion,  the  planters  gave  expression  to 
their  opinion  on  emancipation;  namely,  that  partial  emanci 
pation  was  baleful,  because  the  ransomed  would  be  their 
best  workmen,  and  that  general  emancipation  was  impos 
sible,  until  education  had  rendered  the  slave  worthy  and 
capable  of  freedom. 

The  usual  conclusion,  —  to  do  nothing,  to  wait,  and 
count  on  time  to  avert  an  importunate  solution. 

Providence  sent  to  the  slaves  other  succor  than  this 
suspicious  good-will. 

From  the  time  that  the  English  government  allowed  the 
entrance  of  foreign  sugars,  one  of  the  principal  fears  was 
removed.  The  decay,  moreover,  had  reached  that  point, 
that  a  slave  at  St.  Croix  brought  in  less  than  the  interest  of 
what  he  was  worth,  so  that  an  indemnity  might  be  consid 
ered  by  the  planters  as  a  profit. 

Lastly,  the  measures  of  Governor  Van  Scholten  had  ef 
fected  a  better  moral  condition,  without  being  able  to  arrest 
the  depopulation.  European  public  opinion,  convulsed  by 
the  example  of  England  and  the  projects  of  France,  was  re 
echoed  even  in  Denmark.  There  is  no  cause  for  surprise, 


304  DANISH  COLONIES. 

therefore,  that  when,  in  1846,  a  deputy,  M.  David,  proposed 
immediate  and  simultaneous  emancipation,  in  consideration 
of  an  indemnity  to  the  states,  assembled  at  Rotschild,  the 
proposition  was  welcomed  with  sympathy.  After  a  favor 
able  report,  the  Assembly  of  the  States,  by  a  majority  of 
37  votes  against  19,  demanded  in  due  form  of  the  govern 
ment  to  present  a  bill  having  for  its  object  complete  emanci 
pation.  They  did  not  enter  upon  the  question  of  indemnity, 
which  was  estimated  at  2,000,000  Danish  dollars,  or  from 
£  10  to  £  12  per  slave,  a  price  analogous  to  that  fixed  by 
England  for  the  similar  colonies  of  Antigua  and  Tortola. 

On  the  28th  of  June,  1847,  the  birthday  of  the  queen- 
dowager,  who  had  warmly  solicited  emancipation,  King 
Charles  VIII.  rendered  a  decree  which  abolished  slavery, 
but  postponed  for  twelve  years  the  cessation  of  the  masters' 
power,  and  declared  free  all  children  born  in  the  interval. 

But  this  decree,  which  at  once  gave  and  retained  free 
dom,  caused  an  agitation  in  the  Danish  West  Indies,  which 
the  reaction  of  the  events  in  France  of  February,  1848,  car 
ried  to  its  height.  The  negroes,  persuaded  that  the  decree 
of  their  emancipation  had  arrived,  but  was  withheld  from 
them  by  their  masters,  repaired  peaceably  and  without  arms 
to  the  city,  to  assure  themselves  of  the  truth.  In  the  face 
of  this  manifestation,  which  might  become  sanguinary,  the 
Governor  proclaimed  immediate  emancipation,  July  3,  1848. 

The  planters  resisted  ;  the  militia  sided  with  them.  A 
collision  took  place,  and  ten  or  twelve  negroes  were  killed. 
The  revolt  became  general ;  troops  sent  by  the  Governor 
of  Porto  Rico  slew  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  negroes,  and 
the  former  slaves,  subdued,  were  subjected  to  the  severest 
punishment.  But  these  unhappy  events  rendered  the  return 
to  obedience  still  more  impossible.  The  king  of  Denmark 
confirmed  the  emancipation,  and  the  planters,  who  would 
have  done  better  to  have  yielded  to  it  with  good  grace, 
were  happy  to  owe  the  maintenance  of  order  to  General 
Van  Scholten,  while  the  slaves  owed  to  him  their  liberty. 


SWEDISH  COLONIES.  395 


II.    SWEDISH  COLONIES* 

THE  Isle  of  St.  Bartholomew,  ceded  in  1784  to  Sweden 
by  France,  in  exchange  for  the  right  of  depositing  merchan 
dise  in  the  port  of  Gothenburg,  and  re-exporting  it  without 
paying  duties,  owes  some  importance  to  maritime  wars, 
during  which  its  port,  freely  open  to  the  commerce  of  all 
nations,  did  a  vast  amount  of  business.  But  arid,  not  fur 
nishing  grass  enough  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city  of  Gusta- 
via  for  the  pasture  of  the  fifteen  or  twenty  horses  of  its 
principal  inhabitants,  it  scarcely  deserves  the  name  of  col 
ony.  The  number  of  its  inhabitants  in  1833  was  estimated 
at  1,700,  of  which  531  were  slaves  in  1846. 

In  1844,  King  Oscar  notified  the  States  of  his  desire  to 
decree  the  abolition  of  slavery.  In  1846,  the  Legislature 
placed  a't  the  disposal  of  the  government  50,000  francs  an 
nually  for  the  successive  redemption  of  the  531  slaves  and 
their  complete  liberation. 

What  has  been  the  result  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
these  little  possessions  ? 

We  have  found  it  impossible  to  procure  the  statistics  of 
their  production  ;  but  all  know  that  St.  Thomas  has  become 
a  wealthy  and  important  entrepot,  and  that  St.  Croix  is  a 
flourishing  colony.  For  the  last  ten  years,  no  sound  of  dis 
order  or  distress  has  been  echoed  from  these  little  commu 
nities. 

What  we  have  said  is  sufficient  to  demonstrate  that 
here,  as  elsewhere,  slavery  produced  no  good,  and  its  aboli 
tion  has  produced  no  harm.  A  hail-storm,  a  hurricane,  the 
change  of  a  degree  of  temperature,  would  have  exercised  a 
more  injurious  and  lasting  influence  than  the  happy  libera 
tion  of  25,000  or  30,000  human  beings,  unjustly  subjugated. 

*  Revue  colomale,  1844,  II.  482,  1845,  January  and  July,  1846,  X.  p.  210. 


396  DUTCH    COLOXIES. 


III.    DUTCH   COLONIES. 

WHILE  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  as  yet  in  the  United 
States  but  a  distant  hope,  the  realization  of  which,  though 
approaching,  is  subordinate  to  the  sanguinary  chances  of 
an  interminable  war,  a  generous,  intelligent,  and  free  na 
tion,  Holland,  has  just  peacefully  annihilated  slavery  in  its 
American  colonies  by  a  law  bearing  date  August  8,  1862. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Dutch  are  the  possessors  in 
Asia  of  the  finest  colonies  in  the  world.  There  this  peo 
ple,  so  small  in  territory,  but  so  great  in  character,  this 
people  of  3,000,000  Europeans,  has  succeeded  in  extending 
its  rule  over  a  population  of  20,000,000  inhabitants,  and 
obliging  them  to  labor  without  subjecting  them  to  slavery. 
It  is  true  that  the  colonial  system  of  the  Dutch  East  Indies 
is  open  to  sharp  criticism.  Left  in  dependence  on  the  Ma 
hometan  native  chiefs,  and  burdened  with  taxes,  the  Java 
nese,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  far  from  a  fortunate  race  ; 
and  the  part  of  the  Board  of  Trade  (Handel-Maatschappy) 
which,  since  1819,  has  bought,  transported,  resold,  and 
traded  in  virtue  of  a  monopoly,  is  not  strictly  in  conform 
ity  to  the  rules  everywhere  followed  in  the  relations  of 
nations.  But  this  is  not  the  place  to  examine  this  system, 
the  results  of  which,  it  must  be  admitted,  are  magnificent. 
Before  the  establishment  of  the  system  to  which  the  Gover 
nor,  Van  den  Bosch,  attached  his  name,  Holland  sent  to  its 
possessions  a  subsidy,  which,  in  1826,  amounted  to  80,000,000 
francs.  Thirty  years  after,  in  1856,  Holland  received,  on 
the  contrary,  from  her  East  Indian  colonies,  a  subsidy  ex 
ceeding  63,000,000  francs.*  These  are  the  only  colonies 
which  enrich  their  metropolis.  At  the  same  time,  slavery 
has  no  share  in  their  products.  Labor  is  compulsory,  but 
the  laborer  is  free  ;  he  may  found  a  family,  receives  wages, 

*  Revue  maritime  et  coloniale,  p.  119,  September,  1T62. 


DUTCH    COLONIES.  397 

is  at  liberty  to  change  his  residence  ;  he  is  the  debtor  of 
the  government,  the  slave  of  no  one.  Slavery,  which  ex 
isted  there,  as  everywhere,  before  the  settlement  of  the 
Europeans,  was  long  maintained  ;  but  only  domestic,  not 
field  slavery.  The  custom  of  having  slaves,  either  negro 
or  Indian,  for  coachmen,  cooks,  etc.,  was  continued,  though 
diminishing  by  degrees,  until  one  of  the  best  Governors  of 
the  East  Indies,  and  one  of  the  best  Ministers  of  the  Dutch 
colonies,  M.  Rochussen,  secured  the  adoption  of  the  law 
of  May  7,  1859,  which,  making  good  the  promise  con 
tained  in  a  previous  law,  dated  September  2,  1854,  de 
stroyed  slavery  in  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  from  January 
1,  1860. 

But  if  Holland  no  longer  had  slaves  in  her  large  posses 
sions,  she  still  retained  them  in  her  lesser  ones  ;  that  is,  in 
the  colony  of  Guiana  or  Surinam,  and  in  the  islands  of  Cu- 
ra^oa,  Saba,  St.  Eustachius,  Araba,  Bonaire,  and  St.  Martin, 

small  islands  forming  a  part  of  the  West  Indies,  —  and  in 

her  stations  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  of  which  St.  George 
d'Elmina  is  the  chief.  The  number  of  slaves  in  Surinam  is 
estimated  at  34,000,  in  a  statement  presented  in  1861  by  the 
ex-Minister  of  the  Colonies,  M.  London,  making,  with  that 
of  the  small  islands,  a  total  of  45,272. 

Emancipation  was  made  the  subject  of  debate  by  a  royal 
message,  dated  December  17,  1851.  Between  English  and 
French  Guiana,  where  there  were  no  longer  any  slaves,  it 
seemed  difficult  to  preserve  them  at  Surinam.  The  colony 
itself  demanded  that  the  question  should  be  resolved.  But 
it  was  ten  years  under  discussion  ;  bill  after  bill,  amend 
ment  after  amendment,  was  proposed  ;  the  patience  of  the 
unfortunate  slaves  was  wellnigh  turned  as  a  weapon  against 
them,  to  maintain  them  in  the  bonds  which  they  knew  not 
how  to  break  for  themselves,  as  had  been  feared,  by  insur 
rection  or  flight  to  the  neighboring  colonies.  Public  opin 
ion,  the  Chambers,  and  government,  happily  persevered, 


308  DUTCH   COLONIES. 

More  thorough  investigation  only  confirmed  the  facts  col 
lected  by  the  indefatigable  defenders  of  emancipation, 
among  whom  it  is  just  to  cite  M.  Julius  Wolbers,  the  au 
thor  of  a  remarkable  history  of  Surinam.  The  history  of 
all  slaveholding  peoples  is  fatally  always  the  same  ;  it  may 
be  summed  up  in  these  words  of  the  statement  of  the  rea 
sons  of  the  Dutch  statute,  depicting  the  condition  of  the 
little  islands  of  Curacoa,  St.  Eustachius,  etc.  :  "  No  pro 
gress,  no  use  of  improvements  in  agriculture,  the  intel 
lectual,  social,  and  religious  state  of  the  slave  population 
falling  more  and  more  into  decay/'* 

It  would  take  too  long  to  sum  up  the  extended  discussion 
called  forth  in  the  first  and  second  Chambers  by  the  bill, 
ably  supported  by  the  present  Minister  of  the  Colonies,  M. 
Uhlenbeck  ;  to  set  forth  the  report  presented  by  a  commis 
sion,  composed  of  MM.  Hugenholtz,  Delprat,  Cool,  Mac- 
kay,  and  Dullert ;  and  to  cite  the  various  opinions  and 
amendments  offered  by  the  most  distinguished  and  marked 
men,  such  as  MM.  Van  Zuylen  van  Nievelt,  Blom,  Van 
Bosse,  and  Van  Lynden,  —  we  would  gladly  quote  all  the 
names  commended  by  so  noble  an  action.  But  it  is  not 
without  interest  to  present  the  general  economy  of  the  law  ; 
voted  by  a  majority  of  forty-five  votes  against  seven,  after 
long  deliberation,  by  the  representatives  of  so  practical  and 
prudent  a  people,  thirty  years  after  the  experiment  of  Eng 
land,  fifteen  years  after  that  of  France,  it  gives  realization 
of  a  progress  in  what  may  be  termed  the  art  of  emanci 
pation. 

There  are  two  laws,  one  for  Surinam,  the  other  for  the 
small  islands.  The  stations  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  the  ter 
ritory  and  population  of  which  are,  it  is  true,  very  imper 
fectly  defined,  are  unfortunately  not  in  question. 

Both  laws  are  the  repetition  of  the  same  provisions,  and 
may  be  analyzed  as  follows  :  — 

*  Memoirc  van  Todichting,  No.  4,  p.  20. 


DUTCH   COLONIES.  399 

The  45,000  slaves  of  Holland  are  free  from  July  1,  1863. 
An  indemnity  is  secured  to  the  owners.  This  is  fixed,  at 
Surinam,  at  300  florins  (630  fr.)  per  head,  without  distinc 
tion  of  age,  sex,  or  kind  of  labor ;  and  at  the  small  islands, 
at  from  200  to  250  florins,  except  at  St.  Martin's,  where  the 
slaves  have  been  free  in  point  of  fact  since  the  French 
emancipation,  but  where  no  indemnity  had  been  accorded  : 
here  the  indemnity  is  fixed  at  150  francs.  The  average 
indemnity  in  the  French  colonies  was  530  francs  ;  in  the 
English  colonies,  630  francs.  This  last  figure  is  adopted  as 
a  basis  in  the  Dutch  colonies.  The  total  expense  will  be 
15,000,810  florins  (33,201,000  fr.). 

This  sum  includes  a  subsidy  of  1,000,000  florins,  to  be 
apportioned  in  premiums  for  the  encouragement  of  the  im 
migration  of  new  laborers,  to  replace  the  frcedmen  who  may 
at  first  refuse  field  labor,  to  lessen  wages  by  competition, 
and  to  stimulate  the  progress  of  agriculture.  The  Danish 
government  has  just  offered  the  government  of  the  United 
States  to  receive  and  transport,  at  its  own  expense,  3,000 
fugitive  slaves  to  its  colonies  of  St.  Thomas,  St.  Croix,  and 
St.  John,  —  3,000  fugitive  slaves  who  have  taken  refuge  in 
the  Northern  States.  3,800  of  these  freed  laborers  have 
been  already  sent  to  South  Carolina  (Port  Royal,  Ladies' 
Island,  etc.)  ;  and  a  remarkable  report  recently  addressed 
by  Mr.  Pierce  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Chase, 
attests  the  partial  success  of  this  attempt  at  colonization. 
Perhaps  the  Dutch  colonies,  in  this  moment  of  transition, 
may  also  profit  by  this  abundant  resource. 

For  ten  years,  the  freedmen  are  to  be  subjected  to  a  sur 
veillance  exercised  by  salaried  public  functionaries,  who  are 
forbidden  to  have  any  interests  in  the  colonies.  Free  to 
choose  their  residence,  their  occupation,  and  their  patron, 
the  freedmen  will  not  be  free  to  choose  idleness,  but  are 
bound  to  contract  an  engagement  of  labor  for  from  one  to 
three  years  on  the  plantations,  and  from  three  months  to  a 


400  DUTCH  COLONIES. 

year  in  the  towns,  or  to  prove  an  occupation  by  the  pur 
chase  of  a  license.  During  the  first  two  years  only,  the 
government  may  even  limit  their  choice  to  the  district  of 
their  present  abode,  —  a  somewhat  exorbitant  measure, 
which  is  at  least  compensated  for  by  an  amendment  of  M. 
Van  Bosse,  by  which  the  government  is  at  liberty  to 
exempt  any  freedman  from  surveillance  who  may  show 
himself  worthy  the  favor.  This  intermediate  system  is  free 
from  some  of  the  objections  of  the  apprenticeship  of  1834, 
which  it  became  necessary  to  abolish  in  1838,  as  was  oppor 
tunely  recalled  by  M.  Van  Zuylen  van  Nievelt,  in  demon 
strating  that  this  mixed  system  resulted  only  in  irritating 
both  the  quasi  masters  and  quasi  slaves,  the  one  uncertain 
of  their  property,  the  others  disquieted  for  their  liberty. 

A  civil  state,  a  name,  schools,  culture,  and  the  right  to 
property,  are  at  once  secured  to  the  slave  ;  this  is  to  place 
before  him,  provided  he  attain  them,  the  four  degrees  which 
separate  servile  from  social  life,  —  the  family,  religion,  in 
struction,  and  property.  Take  these  away,  and  he  is  a 
brute.  Add  these,  and  he  is  a  man.  And  after  the  transi 
tional  ten  years,  the  Dutch  law  unequivocally  declare  him 
an  inhabitant  and  citizen  (Acts  22,  23),  very  diiferent  from 
those  laws  of  the  Northern  States  which,  after  according 
him  liberty,  refuse  him  equality. 

Thus,  therefore  :  1.  Immediate  emancipation ;  2.  Prelim 
inary  indemnity;  3.  Surveillance,  with  compulsory  labor ; 
4.  Immigration  at  the  public  expense ;  5.  Religions  and 
moral  education;  —  such  are  the  bases  of  the  law  of  Au 
gust  8,  1862.  They  are  very  nearly  borrowed  from  the 
memorable  report  of  1845,  by  which  the  illustrious  Duke 
de  Broglie  has  taught  all  legislators  the  peaceful  and  prac 
tical  method  of  elevating  human  beings  from  dependence  to 
liberty. 

Forty-five  thousand  men  !  Thirty-three  million  francs  ! 
It  is  very  little,  —  scarcely  more  than  what  is  wasted  and 


DUTCH    COLONIES.  401 

expended  in  a  single  day's  strife  between  the  North  and  the 
South  !  I  am  persuaded  that  the  king  of  Holland  must 
have  signed  with  heart-felt  joy  this  unpretending  law, 
which  sets  so  many  unhappy  beings  at  liberty,  gives  to 
our  century  a  spectacle  which  it  has  rarely  tasted, — that  of 
a  progress  accomplished  without  violence,  —  and  at  length 
effaces  from  the  name,  of  Holland  a  stain  which  rests  now 
upon  the  name  of  but  a  single  Christian  nation  in  Europe, 
yet  the  most  obstinate,  the  first  and  last  in  the  practice 
of  the  slave-trade  and  slavery.  This  nation  is  Spain.* 

*  Journal  des  Dcbats,  Sept  20,  1862. 


APPENDIX. 


404 


Al'I'EXDIX. 


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406 


APPENDIX. 


TABLE 

COMPARATIVE 

In  actual  values,  of  the  Importations  and  Exportation  of  the  French  Colonies 
French  Commerce,  published  by  the  Administration  of 
Table  No.  3. 


YEARS. 

MARTINICO. 

1848  !  ImPortations  of  all  productions 
|  Exportations  of  all  destinations 

Francs.              Francs. 
12,211,716  I    24806221 
12,594,505  j    24.b06>221 

1  OAQ  (  Importations 
*y  I  Exportations     .... 

20,281,048  |    35oQ2m 
15,111,725  j    35>39V73 

1850     Imputations          .         .        . 
{  Importations     .... 

18,367,676  /    on«4ofi 
12,787,760  J    31>155»43( 

-,  nr1  (  Importations 
01  1  Exportations     .... 

SffiJS!  «.^vro 

-.OCQ  (  Importations 
852  1  Exportations     .... 

S®Sj    «W«4 

Totals  for  five  years,  from  1848  to 
1852     .        . 

Quinquennial  averages 

.      36,676,505 

1  CKo  (  Importations 
5d  !  Exportations 

^sSon    44^,739 

1  OK,  (  Importations     .... 
04  1  Exportations 

27,737,500) 
21,188,473  j    48»925>973 

-,0,-E  (  Importations     . 
55  i  Exportations         .        .        . 

«^;»«j    «)942,247 

IQC:R  f  Importations 
56  i  Exportations         .        .        . 

i!!,^i  «^«« 

..OK*  (  Importations     . 
57  j  Exportations 

27,352,510)    .7ooi4nf« 
29,948^896  1    57»301>406 

Totals  for  five  years,  from  1853  to 
1857          

257,734,797 
51,546,959 

Totals  for  ten  years,  from  1848  to 
1857     .         .         ... 

Decennial  averages 

44,111.732 

FRENCH   COLONIES. 


c. 

CONDITION, 

luring  the  Decennial  Period  1848-1857,  according  to  the   General   Tables  of 
Jfetropolitan  Customs  and  the  States  of  Local    Customs. 

GUADALOUPE. 

GUIANA. 

BOUBBON 

Francs.             Francs. 
10,415,876  )    00  Inft0l7p 
11,684,400  j    ^>luu»-7* 

Francs.          Francs. 
1,848,311  )    oQ*c.71o 
2,129,907)    ^'y'°'-i; 

Francs.            Francs. 
10,361,094?    23nio,-, 
13,349,957  \   23''11'051 

13,672,339  j    27  61g  16g 

2,929,447  |    A  i-c  -\M 
1,485,655  (    4>41o>lu^ 

13,979,612;    80596296 
16,616,684  )        '       ' 

14,292,925  |    «4  oqc  474 
11,005,549  j    24>298>4'4 

2,561,965  )         7 
1,517,328  j    4'0'9«293 

18,247,354  ;    qy  1fiR  .. 
18,920,777  \    •;J7)lb«»131 

19,168,391  j    32  606  937 

21,  "637,  007  /    or  «a«  onn 
14,149,383  j    do>b8b>°yi 

2,834,107  ?     ,  n-7  ,-<9 
1,223,635^    4'JD/>'4- 
4.276,703  ;    ,  pnr  Q  .r 
1,330,242  i    5'606>945 

21,079,741  ;    qfi  ORfi  _ 
15,007,081  5    36>086'822 
"22,278,786  ;    .,  oei 
23,702,326  £    40>y«V14 

.     142,308,243 
28,461,649 

.  22,137,300 

4,427,460 

.     173,543,412 

34,708,672 

nielli  30<317'579 

5,676,152  ;    7  379  „  _ 
1,703,173  \      '       '     * 

26,046,747;    4qi902o« 
23,073,481  S    4y»1-u>^^8 

fs;243M98i  i  40'705>675 

5,979,406  ;    7  410  951 

5,912,360  ;    K1Q79R1 
1,284,901  ^    '>iy'>-OJ 

30,615,944;    R9oKAM9 
31,748,068  5    62>364»012 

22,778,433  \    49  7ftq  97R 
19,924,845  j    4VU<V71 

37,607,507  ;    --  87g  ,g7 
34,271,080  ^        '       '     i 

23,793,290  )    QQ  rR<r  <>,R 
15,774,056  j    dy>&b7>d4t 

"25,400,362       4fi  2oo  47= 
20,829,113  )    46»229.475 

6,234,114  ; 
4i495,'551  $  10»729'665 

?;478?;s9?  (  7>°52'676 

-iili!78'676'"0 

.     199,523,353 
.     .    .            89,904,671 

.  39,771,878 
7,954,376 

.     361,623,527 
72,324,705 

.     341,831,596 
34,183,159 

.  61,909,178 
6,190,917 

.     535,166,939 
f  63,516,693 

408 


APPENDIX. 


TABLE   D.* 

COLONIAL    SUGAR. 


Table  No  4. 


Years. 

Average  Price  per 
100  kilog.  on  the 
Paris  Exchange. 

Average 
Duty 
affecting 
the  Year, 
tenths 
included. 

Remain 
der. 

To  be 
deducted 
for  Aver 
age  Costs 
of  Trans 
portation. 

Real 

Net  Cost 
at  the 
Entrepot. 

Quinquennial 
Average  of 
Net  Cost. 

Nominal 
Price. 

Real 
Price. 

1819 

156.37 

141.10 

49.50 

91.60 

3.00 

88.60 

88.60 

1820 

162.41 

146.58 

49.50 

97.08 

300 

94.08) 

1821 

151.65 

136.87 

49.50 

87.37 

3.00 

84.37 

1822 

139.19 

125.61 

49.50 

76.11 

3.00 

73.11 

91.91 

1823 

187.15 

168.91 

49.50 

119.41 

3.00 

116.41 

1824 

159.64 

144.11 

49.50 

9461 

3.00 

91.61  J 

1825 

181.70 

164.00 

49.50 

114.50 

3.00 

111.50-) 

1826 

161.32 

145.59 

49.50 

96.09 

3-00 

93.09 

1827 

172.13 

155.35 

49.50 

105.85 

3.00 

102.85 

99.70 

1828 

168.50 

152.07 

49.50 

102.57 

3.00 

99.57 

1829 

159.54 

14401 

49.50 

94.51 

3.00 

91.51^ 

1830 

155.03 

139.90 

49.50 

90.40 

3.00 

87.40  ' 

1831 

142.60 

128.72 

49.50 

79.22 

3.00 

76.22 

1832 

149.10 

13457 

49.50 

85.07 

3.00 

82  07   • 

80.49 

1833 

144.97 

130.89 

49.50 

81.39 

3.00 

78.39 

1834 

144-97 

130.89 

49.50 

81.39 

3.00 

78.39 

1835 

139.01 

125.49 

49.50 

75.99 

3.00 

72.99) 

1836 

141.70 

129.82 

49.50 

80.32 

3.00 

77.32  | 

1837 

130.80 

11809 

49.50 

6859 

3.00 

65.59  I. 

67.73 

1838 

126.25 

113.97 

49.50 

64.47 

3.00 

6147 

1839 

119.00 

107.18 

42.90 

64.28 

3.00 

6128J 

1840 

138.75 

125.27 

42.90 

82.37 

3.00 

79.37  ] 

1841 

129.75 

117.13 

4950 

67.63 

'    3.00 

64.63  | 

' 

1842 

124.75 

11263 

49.50 

63.13 

3.00 

60.13  V 

64.25  " 

1843 

122.75 

11003 

49.50 

60.53 

3.00 

57.53 

1844 

124-25 

112.13 

49.50 

62.63 

3.00 

59.63  J 

1845 

128.50 

115  98 

49.50 

66.48 

3.00 

63.48  } 

1846 

129.25 

115.68 

49.50 

66.18 

3.00 

63.18 

1847 

124.80 

11268 

49.50 

63.18 

300 

60.18  J. 

59.73 

•68.80 

1848 

116-30 

104.98 

49.50 

55.48 

3.00 

52.48 

1849 

122.33 

111.86 

4950 

62.36 

3.00 

59.36  j 

1850 

138.34 

124.86 

49.50 

75.36 

3.00 

72.36 

1851 

132.58 

119.75 

44.82 

74.93 

3.00 

U.98 

1852 

125.17 

113.00 

40.97 

72.03 

3.00 

69.03   . 

69.10  J 

1853 

116.93 

105.56 

41.80 

63.76 

300 

60.76 

1854 

128.74 

116.22 

41.80 

74.42 

3.00 

71.42 

1855 

130.11 

117.44 

43.70 

73.74 

3.00 

70.74  ' 

1856 

144.93 

130.85 

45.60 

85.25 

3.00 

82  25 

1857 

153.27 

13834 

45.60 

92.74 

3.00 

89.74   • 

77.57 

1858 

137.75 

124.37 

46.80 

77.57 

300 

74.57 

1859 

136.04 

122.76 

4920 

73.56 

3.00 

70.56 

*  I  am  indebted  for  these  tables  to  the  friendly  kindness  of  one  of  the  first  sugar  manu 
facturers  of  France,  the  Honorable  M.  Kolb-Bernard,  deputy  of  Lillw. 


FRENCH  COLONIES. 


409 


INDIGENOUS   SUGAR. 


Average  Price  per 

Average 

To  be 

Real 

Tears. 

100  kilog.  on  the 
Paris  Exchange. 

Duty 
affecting 
the  Year, 
tenths 

Remain 
der. 

deducted 
for  Aver 
age  Costs 
of  Trans 

Net  Cost 
to  the 
Manufac 
turer  per 

Quinquennial 
Averages  of 
Net  Cost. 

Nominal 

Real 

Price. 

Price.* 

included. 

portation. 

100  kilog. 

1830f 

147.70 

13332 

0.00 

133.32 

3.00 

130.321 

1831 

13208 

119.20 

0.00 

119.20 

3.00 

116.20  | 

1832 

132.22 

119.35 

0.00 

119.35 

3.00 

116.35  > 

121.96 

1833 

142.00 

128.22 

000 

128.22 

3.00 

125.22  [ 

1834 

138.20 

124.72 

0.00 

124.72 

3.00 

121  72  J 

1835 

128.20 

115.73 

0.00 

115.73 

3.00 

112.73] 

1836 

130.74 

118.01 

0.00 

118.01 

3.00 

115.01 

1837 

wanting 

0.00 

0.00 

0.00 

0.00 

0.00  \ 

105.74 

1838 

121.75 

109.93 

5.50 

104.43 

2.50 

101.93  1 

1839 

120.25 

109.53 

13.75 

95.78 

2.50 

9328J 

1840 

141.25 

127.47 

2200 

105.47 

2.50 

102.97  } 

1841 

130.25 

116.48 

27.50 

88.98 

2.50 

86.48  1 

1842 

124.25 

112.23 

27.50 

84.53 

2.50 

82.03 

, 

87.59 

1843 

123.00 

111.08 

27.50 

83.58 

2.50 

81.08 

1844 

130.00 

118.18 

3025 

87.93 

2.50 

85.43 

1845 

131.75 

118.92 

35.75 

83.17 

2.50 

80.67  ' 

1846 

130.50 

117.82 

41.25 

76.57 

2.50 

74.07 

1847 

120.75 

109.03        46.75 

63.28 

2.50 

60.78 

64.78' 

1S48 

112.25 

10133 

4950 

51.83 

2.50 

49.33 

1849 

123.00 

11108 

49.50 

61.58 

2.50 

5908, 

1S50 

132.76 

119.81 

49.50 

70.31 

2.50 

67.  sr 

1851 

127  51 

115.09 

49.50 

6559 

250 

62.09 

1852 

120.68 

108.92 

49.50 

5942 

2.50 

56.92 

61.04     64.62 

1853 

118.67 

107.81 

49.50 

58.31 

2.50 

55.81 

1854 

129.43 

116.82 

51.75 

65.07 

2.50 

62.57, 

1855 

130.09 

117.41 

54.00 

63.41 

250 

60.91  ^ 

1S56 

140.77 

127.05 

54.00 

73.05 

2.50 

70.55 

1857 

148.53 

134.06 

54.00 

80.06 

2.50 

77.56 

68.05  J 

1858 

13421 

121.13 

54.00 

67.13 

250 

64.63 

1859 

136.38 

123.09        54.00 

69.09 

2.50 

66.59, 

The  average  of  the  first  six  years,  dating  from  1830,  and  amounting  to  121  fr. 
96  c.  per  100  kilog.,  compared  with  the  average  of  the  last  fifteen  years,  dating 
from  1845  and  amounting  to  64  fr.  62  c.  per  100  kilog.,  represents  the  margin  of 
the  abatement  of  price  on  indigenous  sugar  in  consequence  of  improvements  in 
the  manufacture. 

It  is  proper  to  take  an  average  extended  over  a  great  number  of  years,  for  the 
second  period,  in  order  to  compensate  for  all  the  commercial  accidents  and  ab 
normal  rises  and  falls  produced  in  this  period  by  various  circumstances. 

The  diminution  of  the  net  cost  has  not  followed  a  regular  progress  in  the 
period  from  1845  to  1859,  because  during  the  last  years  all  the  elements  of 
manufacture  increased  in  price;  as  labor,  the  beet-root,  carbon,  charcoal,  bone- 
black,  etc.  • 

*  The  real  price  is  deducted  from  the  nominal  price  after  a  deduction  of  2  per  cent  for 
tret,  5  per  cent  for  tare,  and  5  per  cent  for  discount. 

t  The  price  of  indigenous  sugar  did  not  begin  to  be  quoted  on  'Change  until  1830. 
•  18 


410 


APPENDIX. 


STATISTICS    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COLONIES    IN 
AMERICA.     1855. 


Names  of  the  Colonies. 

Popula 
tion. 

Budget. 

No.  of 
Ves 
sels. 

Amount 
of  Importa 
tions 

Amount 
of  Expecta 
tions. 

The  Barbadoes 

1605 

100,000 

Francs. 
1,723,450 

838 

Francs. 
16,119,600 

Francs. 

19,758,250 

The  Bermudas 

1611 

30,000 

408,075 

206 

4,063,900 

1,026,600 

St  Christopher 

1623 

23,000 

378,800 

406 

2,402,425 

3,616,050 

Antigua 

1625 

35,000 

679,250 

665 

4,812.625 

7,731,525 

Nevis 

1628 

10,000 

85,275 

237 

493,200 

974,400 

Montserrat 

1632 

7,000 

87,500 

134 

192,600 

499,650 

Virgin  Islands 

1648 

8,000 

37,775 

784 

91,525 

204,975 

Jamaica 

1655 

361,400 

7,980,275 

488 

22.487,675 

25,208,025 

Newfoundland 

1663 

75,000 

3,161,225 

1,077 

28,820,000 

28,556,300 

Hudson's   Bay  and 

Vancouver  * 

1668 

Barbadoes  * 

1684 

Bay  of  Honduras 

1714 

3,794 

364,625 

116 

6,137,150 

11,564,775 

Nova  Scotia* 

1759 

Canada 

1763 

1,015,000 

28,825,000 

2,622 

225,538,150 

176,177,875 

Prince  Edward's 

Island 

1763 

71,502 

754,825 

962 

6,712,900 

3,618,300 

Dominica 

1763 

18,660 

194,400 

St.  Vincent 

1763 

26,200 

432,800 

320 

2,812,325 

2,547,800 

Grenada 

1763 

21,000 

398,100 

324 

2,144,500 

2,283,600 

The  Bahamas 

1783 

27,519 

726,725 

332 

4,818,775 

2,791,750 

New  Brunswick 

1784 

193,800 

3,458,825 

3,442 

35,783,250!  20,659,525 

Tobago 

1794 

13,200 

214,525 

76 

934,500 

1,184,675 

Trinidad 

1797 

39,400 

2.016,425 

657 

13,863,350 

9,699,975 

English  Guiana 

1803 

99,710 

6,375,200 

693 

22,150,400 

33,296,795 

St.  Lucia 

1815 

25,230 

372,100 

157 

1,387,850 

1,374,500 

Falkland  Islands 

1833 

420 

161,750 

53 

527,500 

405,000 

Totals 

2,205,315 

58,826,925  14,5891402,294,700  352,238,245 

*  Not  found  included  in  the  Statistical  Tables. 


ENGLISH  COLONIES. 


411 


SUGARS  IMPORTED 


FROM  ALL    SOURCES   INTO   THE   UNITED   KINGDOM,   SINCE  1851, 
ACCORDING  TO   THE   OFFICIAL   DOCUMENTS. 


Years. 

From 
foreign 
Countries. 

GENERAL  IMPORTATION  IN  ENGLISH  QUINTALS. 

From 
foreign 
Countries 
and  the 
Colonies. 
General 
Total. 

Mauritius.      ^ 

Guiana. 

West 
Indies. 

Total. 

1851 

1852 
1853 
1854 
1855 
1856 
1857 
1858t 

Francs. 
2.261,281 
1,058,961 
1,942,321 
3,198,102 
2,301,275 
2,069,453 
3,065,182 
3,630,915 

Francs.        Francs. 
1,000.269    1,585,430 
1,122,064  !  1,303,885 
1,252,269    1,225,378 
1,662,190  j     784,966 
1,363,132       732,055 
1,647,257    1,226,847 
1,184,329    1,181,368 
1,086,501  I     794,309 

Fra 

3,08 
3,41 
584,345 
898,240 
761,093 
672,554 
804,480 
773,825 

ncs. 
>,554 
1,851* 
2,279,977 
2.568,866 
2,166,578 
2,145,129 
2,155,337 
2,725,246 

Francs. 
5,671,253 

5,837,800 
5,341,969 
5,914,262 
5,022,858 
5,696,787 
5,325,514 
5,379,881 

Francs.   . 
7,932.534 
6,896^761 
7,289,290 
9,112.364 
7,324,133 
7,761,240 
8,390,696 
9,010,796 

*  Since  1852,  the  official  tables  of  English  commerce  make  no  distinction,  in  the  general 
importation,  between  the  different  West  India  Islands,  -which  at  this  time  are,  Guiana 
included  :  — 

Demerara ^  747,640  metrical  quintals 

Barbadoes 743,012 

Jamaica 511,259 

Trinidad 483,857 

Antigua 

St.  Vincent 17 

Grenada        ........  125,008 

All  the  other  English  possessions  in  the  West  Indies     438,820 

f  In  1859  and  1860  the  importation  of  colonial  sugar  has  greatly  increased,  while  that 
of  foreign  sugar  has  diminished.  (Revue  coloniale,  Jan.  and  Feb.  1861,  p.  100.) 


412  APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX  TO   PAGE   306. 

Dicunt  quia  die  quadam,  curn  advenientibus  nuper  mercatoribus 
multa  venalia  in  forum  fuissent  collata  multique  ad  einendum  conflux- 
issent,  et  ipsum  Gregorium  inter  alios  advenisse  ac  vidisse  inter  alios 
pueros  venales  positos,  candidi  corporis  ac  venusti  vultus,  capilloruni 
quoque  forma  egregia.  Quos  cum  aspiceret  interrogavit,  ut  aiuut,  de 
qua  regione  vel  terra  essent  adlati.  Dictumque  est  quod  de  Britannia 
insula,  cujus  incolse  tales  essent  aspectus.  Rursus  interrogavit  utrum 
iidem  insularii  Christiani,  an  paganis  adhuc  erroribus  esseut  implicati. 
Dictumque  est,  quod  essent  pagani.  At.  ille  intiino  ex  corde  longa 
trahens  suspiria :  "  Heu,  proh  dolor  !  inquit,  quod  tarn  lucidi  vultus 
homines  tenebrarum  auctor  possidet,  totaque  gratia  frontispicii  mentem 
ab  interna  gratia  vacuam  gestat ! "  Rursus  ergo  interrogavit  quod 
esset  vocabulum  gentis  illius.  Responsum  est  quod  Angli  vocarentur. 
At  ille :  "  Bene,  inquit,  nam  et  angelicam  habent  faciem,  et  tales  ange- 
lorum  et  coelis  decet  esse  cohseredes."  "  Quod  habet  nomen  ipsa 
provincia  de  qua  isti  sunt  adlati."  Kesponsum  est  quod  Deiri  vocaren 
tur  iidem  provinciales.  At  ille :  "  Bene,  inquit,  Deiri,  de  ira  eruti,  et 
ad  misericordiam  Christi  vocati,  '  Rex  provincise  illius  quomodo  appel- 
latur.' "  Responsum  est  quod  A  ella  diceretur.  At  ille,  alludens  ad 
nomen,  ait :  "  Alleluia,  laudem  Dei  creatoris  illis  in  partibus  oportet 
cantari."  Accidensque  Pontificem  RomanaB  et  apostolicaB  sedis,  non- 
dum  enim  erat  ipse  Pontifex  factus,  rogavit  ut  genti  Anglorum  in  Bri- 
tanniam  aliquos  verbi  ministros,  per  quos  ad  Christum  converterentur, 
mitteret?  seipsum  paratum  esse  in  hoc  opus,  Domino  cooperante,  perfi- 
ciendum,  si  tamen  Apostolico  papae  hoc  ut  fieret,  placeret.  Quod  dum 
perficere  non  posset,  quia  etsi  Pontifex  concedere  illi  quod  petierat 
voluit,  non  tamen  cives  Romani,  ut  tarn  longe  ab  urbe  recederet, 
potuere  permittere  ;  mox  ut  ipse  pontificatus  officio  functus  est,  perfi- 
cit  opus  diu  desideratum,  alios  quidem  praedicatores  mittens,  sed  ipse 
praedicationem  ut  fructificaret  suis  exhortationibus  et  precibus  adju- 
vans.* 

*  This  text  from  the  venerable  Bede,  Hist.  Eccles.  Gent.  Anglor.  Lib.  II.  c.  1, 
is  cited  in  the  Letters  on  Domestic  Slavery,  by  Mgr.  England,  Bishop  of 
Charleston,  Letter  IX.  p.  144,  Vol.  III. 


Cambridge  :   Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


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